Factors differentiating between incarcerated men and women in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

This study investigated factors related to female incarceration in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Using an administrative dataset from Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW), we tested the ability of factors derived from two theoretical perspectives in criminology, the Psychology of Criminal Conduct (PCC; Bonta & Andrews, 2024, The Psychology of Criminal Conduct (7th ed.). Routledge), and feminist criminology (Belknap, 2020, The invisible woman: Gender, crime, and justice. California, Sage Publications; Daly, 1992, Women's pathways to felony court: Feminist theories of lawbreaking and problems of representation. Southern Californian Review of Law and Women’s Studies, 2, 11–52; 1994, Gender, crime and punishment. Yale University Press) to differentiate between men and women in prison. Participants (N = 7,865) were individuals serving their first custodial sentence in a New South Wales Correctional Centre between 2017 and 2019. A logistic regression tested the ability of the PCC and feminist criminology risk factors to differentiate between incarcerated men and women. People with more extensive criminal histories had lower odds of being women, and people scoring higher on the family and marital circumstances, finance, accommodation, antisocial associates, and emotional regulation domains and who were Indigenous had higher odds of being women. A history of victimisation and child removal significantly also differentiated between incarcerated men and women. Correctional interventions should be encouraged that attend to these factors in incarcerated women.