“It’s a personal journey”: An Exploration into Formerly Incarcerated Women’s Experiences of Rehabilitation and (Re)Integration

Abstract

Recidivism and reincarceration rates of women in Aotearoa New Zealand are high despite attempts to address criminal offending through access to rehabilitation programmes and post-release services. In Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally, women’s desistance from crime is under-researched. The present study sought to explore and understand the experiences of women in their journey out of prison and how their involvement in rehabilitation programmes and reintegration services aided them when they returned to the community. Interviews were conducted with 20 women who had self-identified as attempting to desist from further offending and who were successfully (re)integrating into the community. The current study added a unique contribution to extant knowledge through taking a strengths-based and mana wāhine framework which focused on what it means for women to create and define a successful reintegration, especially through the representation of wāhine (female) Māori experiences. Interviews were analysed using an interpretivist-constructionist thematic analysis. There were six main themes extracted from the interviews which captured how women explained their reintegration and desistance journeys: (1) There was a Catalyst for Change; (2) Making Personal Changes that Maintained Desistance; (3) Programmes and Activities Helped; (4) Changing People and Places; (5) Social Support Helps (Re)integration and Desistance and; (6) Finding New Roles and a New Sense of Self. Findings demonstrated that women benefitted from completing programmes and utilising reintegration services, particularly when these were responsive to their individual needs, although areas for improvement were highlighted. Overall, the findings support the integration of women-specific factors into rehabilitation programmes and the implementation of women-specific practices into reintegration services. Findings also highlighted two diverging pathways to desistance dependent upon the women’s backgrounds: one characterised by personal development and growth and the other by recovery and healing from trauma. Underlying mechanisms of change are explored and implications for enhancing the effectiveness of existing programmes and services are discussed.