Margaret Severson

Women's Experiences of Violence and Seeking Help

Every day, women survive physical or sexual violence. Some survive as a result of services they receive in the aftermath of the abuse. The study presented here explored womens experiences of victimization and their use of and perceptions about the services they received. It is learned that what providers usually prioritize and what the women in this study used—namely emotional, psychological, and legal support—are not what these women identified as the most helpful. Instead, tangible supports, such as food, housing, and financial assistance, were viewed as the most helpful, along with religious or spiritual counseling.

Prisoner Reentry Programming: Who Recidivates and when?.

This article provides the results of a multi-year evaluation of one states prison reentry program and its impact on the success of offender participants as measured by certain recidivism outcomes, defined here as yielding a positive urinalysis, returning to prison, and having a new conviction. Using propensity score matching, the recidivism outcomes of an equivalent comparison group are also presented. A discussion of the plausible reasons why reentry program participants returned to prison earlier and in greater numbers is provided, and recommendations for additional evaluation strategies are proposed.

Paving the Way for Effective Reentry Practice The Critical Role and Function of the Boundary Spanner

In 2002, 69 sites were awarded funding under the Federal Partners Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative. This initiative calls for each site to design and implement an efficacious three-part program for the successful reintegration of offenders returning from prison into communities across the United States. The Kansas Department of Corrections and the University of Kansas worked together to design, implement, and evaluate the Kansas program, building into it a boundary spanner: that person who works within and between systems to effect integrated system change. This article explores the role of the boundary spanner in confronting the 21st-century challenges facing corrections and communities. A look at how boundary spanning in Kansas is helping to pave the way to achieving optimal systemic change illustrates its usefulness in reentry efforts.

Incarcerated women: Consequences and contributions of victimization and intervention

The increasing rate of imprisonment of women in the United States and the over‐representation of women victims of violence in the corrections system confirms that there are long‐term, often substantially debilitating consequences to women victims of intimate partner violence, sexual violence and youth maltreatment and injury, including incarceration. As part of a study funded by the National Institute of Justice, the authors pursued an exploration of the personal risks, resiliencies and life opportunities that make a difference in the lives of women who have ended up incarcerated. The findings of this study about the prevalence and consequences of youth maltreatment and adult victimization and the mitigating factors, which may have had an impact on the life trajectories of adult incarcerated women will be reviewed. Recommendations will be given for preventive and interventive policy and practice measures that stand to reduce the negative consequences of victimization, particularly those that can prevent i...

Parole Officers’ Experiences of the Symptoms of Secondary Trauma in the Supervision of Sex Offenders:

The work of parole officers who supervise sex offenders rarely comes to the public’s attention unless something goes wrong. Research suggests that those providing postrelease supervision of convicted sex offenders likely experience trauma as a result of their work and that little support is available to respond to their emotional needs. This manuscript explores parole officers’ and parole officer supervisors’ experiences of the symptoms of secondary trauma, defined as the emotional and cognitive experiences of hearing stories that recount one or more traumatic events. The qualitative study described here builds on existing literature by providing a detailed exploration, presented in their own words, of the experiences of specialist parole officers, about how they cope with the symptoms of secondary trauma, and about what they need to help them continue to do the job that the public and the politic want done well. Recognizing and understanding the symptoms of secondary trauma among supervising officers have important implications for maintaining a healthy workforce and for providing effective management of sex offenders in the community.

Community Reentry and Older Adult Offenders: Redefining Social Work Roles

The number of older adults in US prisons continues to rise. In 2002, adults ages 50 and older made up 8% of the US prison population, up from 4% a decade prior. Many older offenders are released to communities that are poorly equipped to meet their special needs. and largely unprepared for the social and fiscal costs of their reentry. The focus of gerontological social work education on the returning older adult offender has been limited. This article examines social work roles in the community reentry/reintegration of older adult offenders. Best practices from the gerontological social work literature are presented and implications for social work practice are discussed.

Who Goes Back to Prison; Who Does Not: A Multiyear View of Reentry Program Participants

Existing studies of reentry programs in the United States focus on the successes and failures of reentering offenders when compared to matched reentering offenders who did not receive structured reentry services. Little attention has been focused solely on the reentry participants themselves, and on how the level of program exposure may be related to recidivism outcomes. This study reports the recidivism outcomes of 357 reentry participants released to the community during a multiyear study period. All of the 357 participants studied were released for at least one full year, making it possible to examine recidivism behaviors by levels of reentry program exposure, at similar points in time. Thus, a range of descriptive and program attributes and an analysis of these attributes vis-à-vis defined recidivism measures is presented to answer the question: “Who goes back to prison?”

Wives and Mothers At Risk: The Role of Marital and Maternal Status in Criminal Activity and Incarceration

As the numbers of women entering prison are increasing, more attention is being paid to the social circumstances of criminally involved women. Crime research has highlighted the familial roles of women more than men, focusing on the social and personal roles of women. This study examines a cross-sectional sample of 423 women in one state, assessing the associations of motherhood and intimate partnership with criminal activity. The study finds that criminal activity, particularly economic crime, is highly related to motherhood. Economic crime is predicted by having a higher number of young children, while both economic and violent crimes are predicted by a womans history of victimization; marriage does not reduce these risks.

Toward a Culturally Competent Restorative Justice Practice Framework: A Focus on Asian Americans

This article suggests a culturally competent restorative justice practice framework for Asian Americans. In developing the framework, the historical development and contemporary issues of restorative justice in the West are explored, and the salient cultural traits and core elements of cultural competence with Asians and Asian Americans are examined. Tentative principles are advanced and recommendations are made for developing a culturally competent restorative justice practice framework for this cultural group, who now constitute 4.4% of the American populace, and for whom harmony in interpersonal relationships and the power of shaming are key considerations.

The Impact of a State Hospital Closure on Local Jails: The Kansas Experience

In 1990, Kansass Mental Health Reform legislation began transferring fiscal support for the delivery of mental health services away from state institutions and into the local community, culminating in the closure of one state hospital facility in 1997. Kansas jails were studied to determine the resulting impact of that hospital closure on the States jail systems, including whether an increase in incarceration rates of persons with severe and persistent mental illnesses followed the closure of the hospital. Though a relationship between the hospital closure and incarceration rates cannot be substantiated, the results do provide a rare birds-eye view of the extent of and problems associated with the incarceration of persons with mental illness in a predominantly rural state.