Rehabilitation Strategies for a High-Risk Female Offender
Background and Risk Assessment of Maria Diaz
In the provided case study, Maria Diaz, a 25-year-old female, committed the identity theft of 14 individuals. Before, she had a forgery charge resulting in nine months’ probation, which was retracted due to technical reasons. According to the community supervision tool, Ms Diaz scores a high percentage of 22-28, with 40% failure. Such a high-risk percentage might be related to her financial instability, lack of stable shelter, and lack of motivation.
Key Challenges: Finances, Housing, and Motivation
Ms Diaz has financial, living, and mental instability, the most urgent three problems associated with her current legal troubles. Regarding finances, she reports bankruptcy as she has not yet paid $7,000 in restitution. She is currently changing workplaces and seeking illegal ways to sustain her finances. It correlates with Hassan’s (2021) findings that females with illegal activity “consistently report more unemployment and financial instability” (p. 180).
Another problem is her unstable living situation since she moves from her boyfriend’s to her sister’s daily, making it more complicated for her child. Like many female offenders, she also notes a lack of motivation to resolve her legal troubles (Wardrop et al., 2019). Therefore, financial and housing instability result in mental frustration, causing more complications.
Proposed Interventions and Support Strategies
Her primary goal is to achieve financial, housing, and mental stability. That is why she might focus on managing money, establishing effective budgeting, and contacting officers to provide financial literacy classes. For the second problem, she should apply for community housing assistance and save money for her dependent child. The Corrections Officer helps by assisting the client in her application process and providing resources for her stable housing. For the final issue, the officer should offer psychological services to Maria so that she sets the goals of tracking her progress, communicating openly, and developing emotional intelligence.
Supervision Models for Rehabilitation
For Maria’s case, Neighborhood-Based Supervision and Criminogenic Needs-Based Supervision models offer comprehensive solutions. The former considers the treatment programs of budget control lectures and job training, where the standard condition is avoiding leaving the country and committing criminal offences. The special conditions are educational classes and counselling sessions with a probation length of three years.
Meanwhile, the latter offers a treatment program of cognitive behavioral therapy to underline the mental causes of criminal conduct with special conditions focusing on emotion management classes and motivation for monthly restitution payments (Wardrop et al., 2021). Standard conditions and probation duration are similar in the two models. Thus, these two models might help Maria develop better life habits.
References
Al Hassan, H. (2021). Violent female offenders: An exploration of adversity, trauma, and offending behaviour in a sample of females supervised by the probation board for Northern Ireland. Irish Probation Journal, 18(1), 180–197. Web.
Goodson, M. V. (2018). Help or hindrance: Female probationers’ navigation of supervision requirements through personal support networks. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(10), 1483–1506. Web.
Wardrop, K., Wanamaker, K. A., & Derkzen, D. (2019). Developing a risk/need assessment tool for women offenders: A gender-informed approach. Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, 5(4), 264–279. Web.