Examination of a Violence Prevention Program for Female Offenders

Only a few interventions have been designed to address violence in women’s lives, both as victims or as perpetrators. Moreover, women in prison are consistently reported to have more complex histories of exposure to violence, trauma, and abuse than their male counterparts. More than 6500 women currently reside in California’s state prisons, with two-thirds serving lengthy sentences for violent crimes. Recent policy changes regarding violent crimes require changes in the type of programming and services offered to these incarcerated women. This study examines results from the intervention, Beyond Violence, a trauma-informed and gender-responsive approach to violence prevention that was provided to women serving sentences for violent crimes (n= 91) in two California prisons. The curricula were facilitated by 29 incarcerated peer educators to 62 women in the general population in the prison. The majority of the participants met the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder at baseline (55% of the peer educators and 71% of the other participants). At the time of the study, women had been incarcerated for an average of 14 years. The intervention showed significantly positive outcomes, with moderate to high effect sizes for women incarcerated for long terms or life on reductions in post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, anger and aggression, and symptoms of serious mental illness. Implementing Beyond Violence may result in reductions in violent behavior among longer term female inmates. Also, findings indicate that the curricula can be effectively facilitated by incarcerated peer educators. Further investigation regarding the potential cost-effectiveness of peer educators versus trained clinical staff is needed.