Linsey Belisle, assistant professor of criminal justice, recently published a journal article titled “Exploring the Impact of Victimization and Mental Health on Sexual Recidivism Among Women Who Have Sexually Offended.”
Although gender-responsive practices have long been emphasized in correctional research, they are rarely applied to women who have sexually offended — a group facing both punitive responses and high rates of trauma. In collaboration with Texas researchers, Belisle and colleagues found that victimization directly and indirectly (through mental health) increases recidivism (the tendency of a criminal to reoffend) among this population, highlighting the need for trauma-informed, gender-responsive approaches.