AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF VALERIE V. HENDERSON, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology, presented on December 6, 2012, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF BLACK FEMALE OFFENDERS' RECIDIVISM AND THEIR CONTEXTUAL NEEDS MAJOR PROFESSOR: DR. KATHLEEN CHWALISZ The United States Department of Justice (2009) estimated that one out of every 15 persons within the U.S. population will be confined to jail or prison within their lifetime. The lifetime prevalence of incarceration, serving a jail or prison sentence, differs among people of various ethnicities and genders. Despite comprising only 14% of the United States population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009), African Americans are overrepresented in correctional facilities and make up 47% of all inmates in the penal system. African American women are incarcerated more frequently and for greater lengths when compared to other racial or ethnic groups of women and most men regardless of their ethnicities with the exception of African American men (U.S. Department of Justice, 2008). African American women's frequent incarceration may be a response of their social systems' values around ethnicity and gender. Qualitative methodology was used to interview eight African American mother-offenders. Participants identified three themes that provided insight into how they lived and responded to contextual restraints based on ethgender discrimination. The three themes that emerged were: (a) False Consciousness: The Mis-Education on White Patriarchy, (b) Parenting: When Children are Harmed, and (c) Black Womanness: Resilient through Marginalization. Both Critical Race Feminism and Critical ethnography were used to interpret the results. Black mother-offenders' high rates of chronic poverty and unemployment, single parenting, domestically abusive relationships, victimization, and substance use began in their ethgender marginalization. To eliminate the disparities in incarceration rates among Black mothers, the problems that disproportionately effect Black women, first, must be addressed. Exposing and creating community solutions that account for the contextual inequalities in the lives of the most marginalized Black mothers must be the goals of all practitioners, researchers, and policy makers.

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This paper analyzes and compares the effectiveness of the correctional systems in the United States of America and Europe, with some emphasis on Scandinavia. To make the comparison, I looked at previous research on the correctional systems in the United States and Europe. I reviewed articles from PsycInfo EBSCO Host and Google Scholar. The main points of comparison used are recidivism rates and rehabilitation services offered by the prisons in different countries. The results of this comparison show that countries that offer better rehabilitation services in the prison system, like Scandinavian countries, have lower recidivism rates than the United States, where the focus is on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Research has been done before on countries individually, but there is not enough research comparing correctional systems among nations. The purpose of this paper was to expand the available literature comparing these different correctional systems.

Previous research has examined certainty and severity of punishment as serving a deterrent function. This research examines the effects of economic, cultural, and social capital, as well as the effects of certainty, severity, and prior punishment on likelihood of re-offending. Data collected at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility suggest that traditional deterrence indicators are insufficient for predicting likelihood of re-offending. This research finds that prior punishment increases likelihood of re-offending, a finding completely counter to that of traditional deterrence. Re-offending may be best understood by considering the effects of punishment on increasing prison capital and decreasing real world capital. The argument is that inmates consider their potential in the real world as compared to that in a prison when reporting likelihood of re-offending. Such considerations should better explain likelihood of re-offending as compared to traditional deterrence indicators, such as certainty, severity, and prior punishment.

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The 35,882 former offenders released by Virginia's Department of Corrections during the period of July 1, 1998, through June 30, 2002, are profiled using data provided by Virginia's Department of Corrections and Department of Correctional Education as well as the Virginia Employment Commission. Demographic characteristics of recidivating and non-recidivating former offenders released during this period, with sub-groupings to include gender, race, age, employment status, earnings, employment stability, and educational completion, as defined in the operational definitions of the study, are detailed, and the researcher's observations are noted. / Ph. D.