Reentering Women's Needs, Programs, and Recidivism

While previous research has examined the special needs of women returning to the community after a period of incarceration, few studies have focused on the association between sociological needs and recidivism. The goals of this study are to evaluate the extent reentry programs meet the special needs of women releases, to investigate the relationship between self-reported needs and recidivism and to understand whether appropriate reentry programs will attenuate the likelihood of recidivism. This study uses robust logistic regression to analyze data from 333 women who participated in the Serious and Violent Offender Reentering Initiative (SVORI). The findings indicated that financial and academic programs were not judged by these women to be helpful. Second, the likelihood of recidivism increased with the level of needs. Third, receiving academic programs reduces the odds of recidivism, whereas financial programs and program helpfulness are not significant determinants of recidivism. Surprisingly, child care programs and their helpfulness are positively related to recidivism. Future efforts are warranted to dig this issue deeper.