NCJ Number
79416
Date Published
1980
Length
124 pages
Annotation
The historical development of programs and services for Georgia's female offenders, the existing system of services for female offenders, female offender population data, and a model of a continuum of services for female offenders are presented.
Abstract
From fiscal year 1976 to fiscal year 1979, the average male inmate population in Georgia has increased 7.7 percent, while the average female inmate population has increased 23.8 percent, producing overcrowding in women's facilities. Resources are not available to expand and refine vocational opportunities for female offenders. Programs to strengthen family ties remain unexplored, and services for the growing proportion of the female prison population with serious emotional problems are provided through only one hospital. Data collection on the female offender is sporadic, while routine reporting channels are in the early stages of development. Given these circumstances, the department of offender rehabilitation has set the following major goals for female clients: (1) to incarcerate only those women for whom there is no realistic alternative, (2) to develop each woman's potential by providing relevant programming, (3) to encourage an awareness within the agency of women's needs that warrant special programming and security approaches, and (4) to increase the public's awareness of and sense of responsibility for the female offender. The model of services presented suggests graded degrees of supervision ranging from nonresidential, least-restrictive options at the preinstitutional stage through a residential, most-restrictive option in the form of a 500-bed institution to nonresidential least-restrictive options in the post-institutional phase. The 15 components of the model are described. Profile data show the female offender to be consistently uneducated, unskilled, and a single head of a household with one or more children. Sixty bibliographic listings are provided.