Classification for Female Inmates: Moving Forward

Most state and federal prisons use a single risk-focused classification system to assign female and male inmates to an appropriate security level. Evidence indicates that women pose very little risk to institutional or community security, and that many factors that predict risk in men are invalid predictors of risk in women. Current systems have led to excessive use of overrides in the classification of female inmates. Findings regarding the needs of female offenders for adjustment to prison and for reintegration into the community are clear and consistent. It is recommended that a greater focus be placed on needs-based classification for incarcerated women.

[1]  Kelley Blanchette.  AN EXAMINATION OF MEDIUM- AND MAXIMUM-SECURITY FEDERALLY-SENTENCED FEMALE OFFENDERS , 1997 .

[2]  D. Gottfredson,et al.  Prediction and Classification: Criminal Justice Decision Making. , 1989 .

[3]  J. Pollock.  Counseling women in prison , 1998 .

[4]  R. Dobash,et al.  The Imprisonment of Women , 1986 .

[5]  N. Rafter.  Partial Justice: Women, Prisons and Social Control , 1990 .

[6]  J. Pollock.  Women, prison & crime , 2001 .

[7]  S. D. Gottfredson,et al.  Race, Gender, and Guidelines-Based Decision Making , 1996 .

[8]  N. Sokoloff,et al.  The Criminal Justice System And Women: Offenders, Victims, and Workers , 1994 .

[9]  Clarice Feinman.  Women in the criminal justice system , 1980 .

[10]  James Austin,et al.  National Evaluation of Objective Prison Classification Systems: The Current State of the Art , 1986 .

[11]  M. Morash,et al.  Women Offenders: Programming Needs and Promising Approaches , 1998 .

[12]  Lynne Goodstein,et al.  The American Prison: Issues in Research and Policy.@@@Privatizing Criminal Justice. , 1991 .

[13]  B. Richie.  Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of Battered, Black Women , 1995 .

[14]  C. Kruttschnitt.  Race Relations and the Female Inmate , 1983 .

[15]  J. Fox.  Women's Prison Policy, Prisoner Activism, and the Impact of the Contemporary Feminist Movement: A Case Study , 1984 .

[16]  Mary E. Gilfus.  From Victims to Survivors to Offenders , 1993 .

[17]  Concetta C. Culliver.  Female criminality : the state of the art , 1993 .

[18]  N. Weiner,et al.  Violent crime, violent criminals , 1989 .

[19]  M. B. Zinn.  Women of Color in U.S. Society , 1993 .

[20]  B. Owen,et al.  In the Mix: Struggle and Survival in a Women's Prison , 1998 .

[21]  Kathleen Daly,et al.  Gender, crime, and punishment , 1994 .

[22]  A. Browne.  When Battered Women Kill , 1987 .

[23]  Rafter,et al.  Judge, Lawyer, Victim, Thief: Women, Gender Roles And Criminal Justice , 1982 .

[24]  Kathleen Daly,et al.  Women's pathways to felony court: feminist theories of lawbreaking and problems of representation , 1992 .