Program Integrity and the Principles of Gender‐Responsive Interventions

• Published date: 01 May 2015
• Date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12131
• Author: Emily J. Salisbury

POLICY ESSAY

OUTCOME EVALUATION PROGRAM

FOR FEMALE OFFENDERS

Program Integrity and the Principles of

Gender-Responsive Interventions

Assessing the Context for Sustainable Change

Emily J. Salisbury

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Duwe and Clark (2015, this issue) provide a sophisticated and novel ap-

proach to understanding the importance of program integrity in evaluation

research. They investigated two time periods in which women inmates from the

Minnesota Correctional Facility—Shakopeeparticipated in Moving On (Van Dieten, 2010),

a cognitive-behavioral and gender-responsive curriculum specifically designed for women

offenders. During the first time period between 2001 and 2010, Duwe and Clark deter-

mined that Moving On was delivered with 80% (high) fidelity, whereas during the second

time period (2011–2013), the program was delivered with only 20% (low) fidelity. By

comparing recidivism outcomes across multiple comparison groups and under both fidelity

conditions, Duwe and Clark demonstrated that Moving On produced meaningful reduc-

tions in two of the four measures of recidivism when implemented with integrity, but it

failed to do so when implemented without integrity. As such, Duwe and Clark’s study is

a stark reminder that programs may fail to produce reductions in recidivism not because

they are ineffective or based on poor theoretical assumptions, but because they are not

implemented as program developers intended.

Their evaluation, in my opinion, is all the more important because it focuses on an idea

in corrections that has not yet been fully embraced—that a gender-responsive approach for

women offenders is necessary to maximize positive outcomes and reductions in recidivism.

Despite the increasing evidence that women have unique pathways to crime (Brennan,

Breitenbach, Dieterich, Salisbury, and Van Voorhis, 2012; DeHart, Lynch, Belknap,

Direct correspondence to Emily J. Salisbury, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas,

4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 455009, Las Vegas, NV 89154 (e-mail: emily.salisbury@unlv.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12131 C2015 American Society of Criminology 329

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 14 rIssue 2