ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the history of women's imprisonment and introduces readers to the tenets of effective rehabilitation for women. It explores environmental factors within prisons that undermine women's rehabilitation and discusses strategies for counteracting these factors. The chapter also reviews desistance research that highlights the importance of social and environmental factors in promoting positive change, and explores strategies for increasing women's likelihood of successful re-entry and desistance from crime. It discusses the environment of prisons and how detrimental they are for women. Incarcerated women have higher rates of mental health and substance abuse problems than their male counterparts. They have also experienced high rates of trauma and homelessness prior to their incarceration. In the United States, the 'what works' or 'evidence-based' model focuses, primarily, on changing the individual, or building human capital, through the provision of programmes and services that address important criminogenic needs.
