Title: The Women’s Risk Needs Assessment: Putting Gender at the Forefront of Actuarial Risk Assessment - Penal Reform International
Headings: The Women’s Risk Needs Assessment: Putting Gender at the Forefront of Actuarial Risk Assessment
The Women’s Risk Needs Assessment: Putting Gender at the Forefront of Actuarial Risk Assessment
Women have distinct pathways to offending to men, often marked by violence, abuse, trauma, mental illness and unhealthy relationships – all factors which translate into needs and risk factors for reoffending. However, traditional risk and need assessments are designed with male offenders in mind. This blog post by criminologists, Breanna Boppre and Emily Salisbury of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, summarises the gender-specific risk assessment that was designed specifically for women in the U.S. to bring gender to the foreground of offender rehabilitation.
The development of the WRNA: Starting from ‘women up’
More information
PRI’s work on gender-sensitive risk and needs asssessments
Footnotes

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Thus, the WRNA more effectively assesses criminogenic needs and strengths that are more applicable to women offenders than traditional risk assessments are able to do. The gender-responsive factors assessed include relationship support and conflict, parental involvement and stress, self-efficacy, prior physical and sexual trauma, housing safety, mental health (including depression, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, psychosis), and anger/hostility. In addition to these gender-responsive factors, the WRNA also measures gender-neutral factors that research has shown are still predictive of women’s recidivism. These consist of past and current substance abuse, criminal history, employment and financial stability, educational strengths and needs, and antisocial attitudes. In sum, the argument for the implementation of gender-responsive strategies emerged from the recognition of differences in male and female criminal behavior. Based upon crime trends and the voices of women offenders themselves, it is clear that women’s criminality is frequently quite different from that of men. Internationally, women are incarcerated at a much lower rate than their male counterparts. [ 3] Additionally, women tend to commit lower level offenses such as property and drug crimes in comparison to men. As the types of crimes and pathways into criminal behavior differ between men and women, gender must be in the foreground of offender rehabilitation, the principles of effective intervention, and risk/needs assessment inquiry to adequately account for gender differences in risk factors and treatment needs. Consequently, the WRNA is a central component in the gender-responsive movement as it was created with women’s specific needs and risk factors in mind and is, therefore, better able to classify women offenders for custody/supervision levels and treatment programming.