The Connections of Parole and Probation Agent Communication Patterns With Female Offenders’ Job-Seeking Self-Efficacy

• Date: 01 June 2020
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Merry Morash,Ariel L. Roddy
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X19895963
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X19895963

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2020, Vol. 64(8) 774 –790

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X19895963

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Article

The Connections of Parole

and Probation Agent

Communication Patterns

With Female Offenders’

Job-Seeking Self-Efficacy

Ariel L. Roddy1 and Merry Morash1

Abstract

Using subsamples of 130 and 96 women on probation and parole, this research

explores the direct effect of the supervising agent’s communication patterns on

client job-seeking self-efficacy. It also tests for the mediating effect through client

psychological reactance, which is a feeling that one’s freedoms are threatened. Agent

and client reports of a conformity pattern of communication were associated with

lower levels of job-seeking self-efficacy. Client reactance mediated this relationship.

Agent and client reports of a conversational pattern of communication were associated

with increased job-seeking self-efficacy. The results suggest that conformity-oriented

communication should be avoided because of its potential to increase reactance and

to promote low job-seeking self-efficacy. In contrast, conversational communication

appears to have more positive effects on job-seeking self-efficacy. Findings highlight

communication as a pathway through which agents can improve behavioral outcomes

for women offenders searching for work.

Keywords

women offenders, probation and parole, employment, communication, reactance,

job-seeking self-efficacy

In 2016, nearly 1 million women (918,275) were sentenced to probation, and an addi-

tional 113,724 were on parole (Kaeble, 2018), making community supervision the

1Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ariel L. Roddy, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, 655 Auditorium Road, 138 Baker

Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

Email: roddyari@msu.edu

895963IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X19895963International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyRoddy and Morash

research-article2019

Roddy and Morash 775

most common correctional intervention in the United States. Given the widespread use

of community supervision, its failure has substantial public cost. Expenses resulting

from recidivism extend beyond costs to victims, offenders, families, and communities

to include the cost of law enforcement, courts, and additional correctional interven-

tions (Clear, 2007; Cohen & Bowles, 2010; Ostermann & Caplan, 2016). Because

community supervision is used for both individuals granted parole after serving part of

their prison sentences and offenders who are sentenced to probation instead of prison,

parole and probation agents have a unique opportunity to affect the outcomes of

women at different stages of criminal justice system involvement. The high costs asso-

ciated with recidivism and the benefits associated with effective supervision indicate

a need to understand the results of differing community supervision practices (Kleiman,

2011; Meredith & Prevost, 2009; Ostermann, 2015).

In this article, we focus on variations in probation and parole agent patterns of com-

munication with female clients, and how these variations are related to clients’ self-

efficacy to locate employment. Job-seeking self-efficacy is a woman’s belief in her

ability to carry out job search behaviors and successfully obtain employment (Kanfer

& Hulin, 1985). The link between job-seeking self-efficacy and employment outcomes

is well established (Côté et al., 2006; Kanfer et al., 2001; Wanberg et al., 2005).

Probation and parole agents’ ways of talking to their clients may increase job-seeking

and consequently improve employment outcomes for women on probation and parole.

Thus, we examine the connection between how probation and parole agents talk to

clients and clients’ feelings of job finding self-efficacy. We also consider whether

some probation and parole agents talk to clients in a way that elicits reactance, which

is a person’s feeling that his or her freedom is compromised or threatened, and result-

ing anger and attempts to restore or protect freedoms (J. W. Brehm, 1966; S. S. Brehm

& Brehm, 2013; Miron & Brehm, 2006). We included the study of reactance because

it can decrease job search self-efficacy.

We focus on women offenders’ job-seeking self-efficacy for two key reasons.

First, unemployment is a criminogenic need for offenders (Andrews et al., 2006),

making low job-seeking self-efficacy a potential risk factor for recidivism. Second,

women offenders have unique difficulties finding work, because they disproportion-

ately suffer from mental health problems, including substance misuse (Bloom et al.,

2003; McPhail et al., 2012; Sirdifield, 2012), which interfere with job searches.

Additional barriers unique to women include human capital deficits (i.e., lack of

education, skills, and experience sought by employers; Bergseth et al., 2011;

Salisbury et al., 2009) and primary or sole caregiving responsibilities for young

children (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008), both of which decrease the chances of finding

employment.

Theory developed in the discipline of communication has shown that messages

received by people who are unemployed can increase job-seeking self-efficacy, which

in turn improves job search behavior by enhancing feelings of confidence in one’s

ability to be successful in locating employment (Lim et al., 2016; Maddy et al., 2015;

Russell et al., 2015). This research is relevant to community supervision, which typi-

cally involves probation and parole agents meeting regularly with clients to discuss