Women Offender Programs and Issues

Parenting Roles And Experiences Of Abuse In Women Offenders: Review Of The Offender Intake Assessments

RESULTS

PARENTING/CHILDCARE RESPONSIBILITY

Number of Women with Children

It was noted in the Survey that the "number of women with children" referred to "natural children who are alive" (p.10). The Survey further stated that not all of those children "were dependent upon their mothers," and that some may have been "adopted out at birth and others are adults" (p.11). For these reasons, this category seemed to include women from the sample of the OIAs Review who gave birth to at least one child, and whose child is alive (N=325). Among women in this study, 332 gave birth. However, in the case of seven women none of their children were living and therefore these women were included in the category "women with no children".

Table 1

Number of Women with Children

Note. ^a In the Survey information was missing for 1 woman.

^b In the OIA Review, information was missing for 26 women.

Table 1 shows that the majority of women have had children in both data sets. More specifically, 64.5% of the Survey sample and 81.2% of the OIAs Review gave birth to one child or more. In the latter study, there was a greater proportion of women who had at least one child and the difference between the two samples was statistically significant [(_2 (1, N = 569) = 19.36, p > .001)].