Research at a glance

September 2008 | Number R190
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Women offenders’ institutional behaviour: The impact of correctional environment

KEY WORDS: women offenders, security reclassification, institutional behaviour, misconduct

Why we did this study

Correctional Service Canada uses security classifications (minimum, medium, or maximum) to manage offenders. Research demonstrates that women classified to higher levels of security are involved in more institutional misconducts than those at lower levels of security. To date, however, research has not clarified whether this difference is due to factors specific to the women themselves, features of the correctional environment at different levels of security, or a combination of the two.

Though it has been argued that institutional classification systems influence behaviour through the placement of offenders, studies conducted with male offenders have found that correctional environment does not influence involvement in institutional incidents.

Nonetheless, since there is evidence that institutional adjustment can differ across genders, it is not clear if this conclusion is applicable to women also. For this reason, we examined this issue as it applies to women offenders.

What we did

To examine the issue, we used all security reviews for women conducted over an approximate 5 year period (about 900 reviews). Security reviews include the application of the Security Reclassification Scale for Women (SRSW) and consideration of case-specific risk factors.

The first analyses involved contrasting the rates of involvement in institutional misconduct for cases classified to the same level by the SRSW but actually placed at different levels (i.e., cases kept constant on level of risk but varying on correctional environment). The second analyses involved comparing incident involvement for those placed at the same level, but classified at different levels by the scale (i.e., cases kept constant on correctional environment but varying on level of risk).

What we found

Across two samples, we found that actual security placement was not associated with institutional conduct after accounting for SRSW security classification. On the other hand, SRSW security classification continued to be associated with institutional behaviour after accounting for actual placement.

This pattern shows that factors specific to the women influence institutional behaviour, butcorrectional environment does not. In other words, environment does not appear to exert a criminogenic effect with respect to women offenders’ institutional behaviour.

What it means

These findings are encouraging because security classification incorporates assessment of three areas of risk: institutional adjustment, risk of escape, and risk to the public in the event of an escape. When placement at a higher security level is necessary due to risk in one of the latter two areas, we can now be confident that there will be no associated increase in institutional misconduct.

For more information

Gobeil, R., Blanchette, K. & Barrett, M.R. (2008). Women offenders’ institutional behaviour: The impact of correctional environment. Research Report R-190. Ottawa: Correctional Service Canada.

http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/reports/r190/r190-eng.shtml

Prepared by: Renée Gobeil

Contact

Research Branch
(613) 996-3287