Table 1 Innovations to reduce women’s recidivism and improve correctional environments

Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA)

Risk/needs assessment designed for adult women; can be used for custody classification, community supervision risk level, and identify women’s criminogenic needs and strengths

Institutional and community supervision

Several research validation studies; see socialwork.utah.edu/wrna

Predictive validity among minoritized women

Gender-Responsive Treatment Curricula (various brand names)

To reduce women’s institutional misconducts and community recidivism; see Fleming et al. (2021)

Institutional and community supervision

Several program evaluations of various curricula; see Fleming et al. (2021) and Gobeil et al. (2016)

Predictive validity among minoritized women

Gender-Responsive Policy and Practice Assessment (GRPPA)

Program/policy evaluation assessment to determine adherence to gender-responsive principles

Institutional facilities

Support based on foundational gender-responsive and feminist theory

Validation studies

Women’s Correctional Safety Scales Toolkit

Institutional-level resource measuring and improving the physical, emotional, and sexual safety of correctional environments for incarcerated women; to identify potential PREA^a risk factors

Institutional facilities

Owen et al. (2017)

Additional validation studies

Safety Matters

Training curriculum to teach staff effective communication to safely manage relationships with and among justice-involved women

Institutional facilities

Support based on foundational gender-responsive and feminist theory

Effectiveness of the training on staff attitudes and behavior

Supervision Agency Gender-responsive Evaluation (SAGE)

Program/policy evaluation assessment to determine adherence to gender-responsive principles

Community corrections agencies

Support based on foundational gender-responsive and feminist theory

Validation studies