Gender as a Moderator in Predicting Re-arrest Among Treated Drug-Involved Offenders

摘要

The primary aim of the current study is to explore gender differences on the relationships of pre-treatment risk factors (i.e., substance use severity and criminal history) and psychosocial functioning (i.e., decision making, risk taking, self-esteem, social support, and peer support) with time to re-arrest following termination from prison. With gender as a moderator variable, survival analysis was used to model time to re-arrest in terms of pre-treatment risk factors and psychosocial functioning. The sample consisted of 697 participants (384 males and 313 females) who were admitted to four prison-based substance abuse treatment programs. Female inmates experienced a longer time to re-arrest than male inmates. Better decision making and more peer support were associated with lower levels of re-arrest for males. Males with higher self-esteem were more likely to be re-arrested than their counterparts. Females with more self-reported criminal involvements had a higher rate of re-arrest than those with less criminal involvement. In contrast to males, females with relatively high self-reported self-esteem had a lower rate of re-arrest than their counterparts. Clinical implications include the importance of enhancing decision-making ability and peer support for males and self-esteem for females.