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80 Fed. Probation 45 (2016)
Transportation Strategies of Female Offenders

handle is hein.journals/fedpro80 and id is 193 raw text is: December 2016 45 DEPENDABLE TRANSPORTATION CAN include automobile ownership, proximity to affordable and reliable public transit, or physi- cal ability to walk or bike from place to place. The challenge of dependable transportation has been well studied in low-income and elderly populations -populations similar to female offenders. Female offenders commonly experience financial hardship (Holtfreter, Reisig, & Morash, 2004) as well as unemploy- ment, unsafe housing (Schram, Koons-Witt, Williams, & McShane, 2006), and significant health concerns (Maruschak & Berzofsky, 2015). However, unlike these populations, female offenders have disadvantages unique to their criminal-justice system involvement (Daly, 1992; Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988). Due to pasts demarcated by trauma, many face depression and anxiety symptoms, anger/ hostility, adult victimization, parental stress, and relationship dysfunction (Belknap, 1996; Bloom, Owen, & Covington, 2003; Covington & Bloom, 2003; O'Brien, 2006; Owen & Bloom, 1995; Richie, 2001). Some also face psychosis symptoms. These conditions likely translate into greater need for transportation to meet day-to-day needs and complete super- vision successfully. Yet, because of these problems, female offenders are often categorized on risk and needs assessments as higher risk to recidivate (Hannah-Moffat, 1999). As a result, women are then required to attend a greater number of supervision programs. Complicating the situa- tion, programs appropriate for women tend to be farther away geographically because fewer women are in the criminal justice system. Further still, because 56 percent of females in federal prisons and 62 percent in state prisons have at least one child (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008), female offenders are likely to have primary caretaking responsibilities for minor children who complicate travel (Covington, 2002). Consequently, women involved in the criminal justice system experience a greater and usually unrecognized need for dependable and affordable transportation than men, low- income women, and the elderly. Previous research has found that access to dependable transportation, in low-income populations, has been linked to several favor- able outcomes. When women do own cars, they live in better neighborhoods-ones with lower poverty rates and fewer health risks (Pendall et al., 2014). In fact, owning a car is more important to getting, and maintaining, employment than one's education or work experience (Lichtenwalter, Koeske, & Sales, 2006). Therefore, it's not surprisingly that a 2014 Urban Institute Study (Pendall et al., 2014) recommends that low-income women need greater access to cars. Access to public transit is also impor- tant for labor participation. In two large U.S. cities, Sanchez (1999) found that peo- ple who lived closer to a bus or subway stop had significantly higher rates of labor participation. Living closer to better trans- portation is important because it improves access to medical services and social programs (Cvitkovich & Wister, 2001). Individuals with worse transportation access report increased levels of stress, reduced labor productivity, lower employee performance, and absentee- ism (Cox, Griffiths, & Rial-Gonzalez, 2000; Gottholmseder, Nowotny, Pruckner, & Theurl, Miriam Northcutt Bohmert Indiana University - Bloomington 2009; Jacobson et al., 1996). In short, employ- ment and health outcomes are better for those with better access to transportation. Looking specifically at offender popula- tions, previous research has highlighted the prevalence of transportation disadvantage as well as its problematic outcomes (Northcutt Bohmert, 2016, 2014; Northcutt Bohmert & DeMaris, forthcoming). In one Midwestern state sample, 57.4 percent of women offenders (210 of 366) were transportation- disadvan- taged (Northcutt Bohmert, 2014). In follow-up interviews (n=75), women identified the common problems with transportation: cost, access, reliability, and safety (Northcutt Bohmert, 2016). The majority of the women in the sample (80.9 percent) earned less than $10,000 per year, or just $192 per week. In fact, 20 percent of women reported that the cost of transportation was a problem for them. Sixty- eight percent of women did not own or lease their own vehicles. Among those who did have cars, 32 percent reported car problems such as their car breaking down frequently. Buses providing limited or inadequate service were a problem reported by 22.7 percent of women. And 12 percent of women in the sample reported in the in-depth interviews that safety concerns were a problem. In turn, transportation problems turned into missed supervision appointments, work, a medical appointment, mental health appointment, or a supervision-related appointment (e.g., a court date). Women with less access to transporta- tion had a higher incidence of supervision violations, arrest, and convictions, and experi- enced these events more rapidly than women with higher levels of transportation access,

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