Improving Rehabilitative Practices by Reconceptualizing the Risk, Need, and Responsivity Principles for Women

• In Event: Gender-Responsive Justice: Rethinking Post-Conviction Policies and Practices for Women

Abstract

This presentation focuses on evidence supporting the need for a reformulation of the core rehabilitation principles of Risk, Need, and Responsivity (RNR), which were primarily developed with justice-involved men in mind. Each principle will be discussed in turn regarding the ways in which they could be conceptualized, operationalized, and more effectively applied with women. Evidence to support proposed refinements will come from the cumulative research on gender-responsive risk assessment (including the Women’s Risk Needs Assessment), as well as girls’/women’s pathways to crime.

In short, women do not pose nearly as much risk for antisocial behavior as men; some of women’s risk factors and needs for treatment are similar to men’s, but many others are distinct and remain unmeasured with male-based risk models; and gender should be at the forefront of RNR rather than relegated to responsivity efforts.

Author

• Emily Salisbury, University of Utah