How Women on Probation and Parole Incorporate Trauma Into Their Identities.

The many court-involved women who have experienced trauma in their lifetimes are particularly vulnerable to the negative outcomes of trauma. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry is to understand how women who have repeatedly broken the law incorporate traumatic experiences into their identities in such a way that they increase their agency, communion, or spirituality. The research also documents the types of traumatic experiences the women included in their life stories. Informed by narrative identity theory and the related theory of posttraumatic growth, the life stories of 118 women on probation and parole were examined for themes indicative of identity transformation through redemption or indicative of contamination and stagnation. The narrative accounts considered in this study involved sexual, physical, and psychological abuse; neglect; sudden or unexpected loss; violence exposure; and severe illness or injury. Nearly all women reported having at least one traumatic experience in their lifetime, and the majority incorporated the experiences into their identities. Posttraumatic growth most often included gains in communion (i.e., helping others and caring for others) and gains in individual agency (i.e., empowerment). Thirty women also described having generative concerns or taking generative actions to improve the well-being of others as an outcome of their traumatic experience(s). For women with children, becoming better mothers and protecting their children from victimization were the overarching themes of their redemption, communion, and generative narratives. The findings highlight the importance of community responses to traumatized girls and of counseling and therapy for justice-involved women. Several specific suggestions for supporting the development of trauma and survivor narratives as a therapeutic tool are provided as a means for clients to develop interpersonal connections and empowerment.

Tracking methods and retention for a longitudinal sample of alcohol- and drug-involved women on probation and parole.

Attrition, or the progressive loss of individuals from a sample, poses a major problem in fields that carry out research to inform policy and program design. Attrition reduces statistical power by reducing sample size and compromises the external validity of findings by introducing sampling bias. If sampling bias results from disadvantages that act as barriers to research participation, then it promotes social injustice by excluding disadvantaged groups from the study. This study describes strategies used to retain participants in a longitudinal study of experiences of women under community supervision (probation or parole). It uses quantitative methods to examine sampling bias and qualitative methods to elicit accounts of participants' explanations for being hard to reach and their recommendations for retention in future research. For participants who were and who were not retained, there were no statistically significant differences on several common quantitative predictors of retention. Hard-to-reach women identified residential mobility, low income, and busy lifestyles as main reasons research staff had difficulty contacting them and recommended repeated attempts at contact through multiple means. The article ends with recommendations for limiting attrition of disadvantaged, justice-involved women in studies, and for steps to be taken when women are especially difficult to contact.