The Women, Crime and Justice Research Group (WCJR)

Through cutting edge and gold standard evaluation methods, the Research Group will seek to further the case for Women’s Centres as a viable alternative to custody for women. In doing so, it will offer the opportunity for selected partner Women’s Centres to reflect on ‘what works’ in terms of their own casework practice and current interventions to inform the effective delivery of Centre services.

Upcoming Research: Phase III Starting on April 2026

Gendered Wellbeing Assessment

The group will be testing the developed the Gendered Wellbeing Assessment which is a comprehensive trauma-informed quality of life assessment, suitable for women with complex needs, without current criminal justice involvement. The assessment is intended to inform effective support plans and to detailed referrals to statutory services and agencies.

The study seeks to test the reliability of the tool based on assessments collected in participating Women’s Centres, with the predictive validity of the tool tested with outcomes arising from linked administrative data.

Current Research (Phase II: 2023-2026)

Workstream 1: WRNA Implementation and Training

The goal within this workstream is to embed the WRNA within partner centres and enable them to develop the capacity to collect standardised and rigorous outcomes data. We will create an online WRNA training platform, with associated training modules, to support delivery of WRNA training to new starters and refreshers, as required. Finally, this workstream will also develop a ‘Wellbeing Assessment to be used with non-criminal justice involved women.

The WRNA implementation and training package will aid in the development of effective outcome measures and monitoring/evaluation systems. The validation of the WRNA offers a unique opportunity to build datasets based on standardised outcome data across different services, as well as organisations. This will allow the sector to make collective representations to policymakers over the effectiveness of their services as well as offer the opportunity for organisations to build their monitoring and evaluation capacity drawing on rigorous validated outcome measures – so that these organisations are able to review the effectiveness of their own intervention.

Workstream 2: Quantitative Analysis of the WRNA Phase I data and Complex PTSD

In this workstream we want to provide a fine grain analysis of needs and subgroups of criminal justice involved women to more effectively direct public spending and to refine the delivery of interventions in Women’s Centres.

The Phase I validation study generated a dataset for 530 women across the 17 scales of the WRNA as well as demographic data. Allied to the WRNA assessment, this data will be linked to criminal justice outcomes for each individual woman. As a result, this dataset will enable three analytical projects to be undertaken.

The first will allow us to consider gendered pathways into the criminal justice system, utilising the WRNA needs and criminal justice outcome data. This will follow on from analysis produced in the US by Brennan et al (2012) that identifies 4 gendered pathways into the criminal justice system for women; the WRNA data will allow us to test existing pathways and categorisation of criminal justice involved women.
Following this, the WRNA, as a risk-needs assessment also categorises women into their risk-bands (Moderate, Medium, High). Whilst the WRNA has been validated and re-validated in line with changes to its content and the demographics that it has been used with across the world, further validation is required for its use in the UK. The revalidation will confirm that it still "works" in the UK population, and that women are placed into the appropriate risk bands.
The third analytical project will relate to the multi-level modelling of complex needs, which is a term for which little precision or clarity exists in both policy and academia. The proposed analysis would seek to improve understanding of the inter-relationships between these needs and identify hierarchies of needs. Consequently, we will be able to identify the needs of subgroups of criminal justice involved women that might better inform policy making and resource allocation/service delivery.
The fourth analytical project will investigate the extent of ‘Complex PTSD’ or ‘Complex Trauma’ within the WRNA sample. Currently the WRNA measures PTSD and captures Childhood and Adult experiences of abuse/violence, but not a measure of ‘Complex Trauma’. The World Health Organization (WHO) now distinguishes between PTSD and complex PTSD in the latest version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11; WHO, 2018). The ICD-11 identifies ‘Complex Trauma’ via six symptom clusters, relating to (a) re-experiencing the traumatic event(s), (b) actively avoiding potentially triggering situations, (c) heightened sense of threat/hyperarousal, (d) affect dysregulation, (e) negative self-concept, and (f) difficulties in relationships. It is possible that measures of these symptom clusters could be constructed through existing measures in the WRNA. From this data we would be able to estimate the prevalence of complex trauma amongst cohorts of criminal justice involved women in England.

Workstream 3: Developing an Evidence Based Casework Model

A fundamental aspect of Corstonian women’s centres is the one-to-one support provided to criminal justice involved women by their caseworkers (also known as keyworkers). Typically, caseworkers will assess the needs and strengths of women to create an individualised support plan. As part of this plan, caseworkers may either signpost or refer service users' to programmes or interventions within the centre, or to external agencies to address a specific need. From our existing research within women’s centres, it is apparent that there are different versions of casework in operation across the sector. There is also a limited research base as to what casework is in the context of women’s centres. Workstream 3 aims to address this gap.

Workstream 3 will be conducted in two phases:

Phase One:

Via a series of semi-structured interviews with caseworkers and managers, unstructured observations within participating centres, and an online survey of women’s centres and community services across the UK, we will map the variety of understanding and practice of casework across the sector.
This research will inform the production of a set of guiding practice principles.
A narrative review of the literature will also be conducted to identify different models of casework from across cognate literatures such as social work, drug and alcohol recovery, and mental health.
This phase will culminate in the proposal, design, and implementation of a ‘best-practice’ casework model.

Phase Two:

The casework model will be tested using a quasi-experimental, case-control study. The aim of the study is to test the efficacy of a specified approach to casework practice on primary and secondary outcomes, that will involve the experimental (casework model) and comparison group (treatment as usual).
This study will test the effectiveness of the new casework model for women who enter women’s centres via referral from probation.

Workstream 4: Evaluation of Women’s Centre Trauma Interventions

The goal of this workstream is to provide an evidence base for core interventions across Women’s Centres which will enable understanding of which interventions work and for whom.

As a number of Centres have adopted the WRNA to collect data as normal working practice, this offers the opportunity to measure outcomes for specific programmes/interventions within the Centres by using these standardised and validated measures via the WRNA. The research team will examine the trauma interventions and pathways which are currently offered across the Centres and carry out an observational study of Centres with specific trauma pathways, compared to a Centre with no specific trauma pathway, using propensity score matching. As well as comparing short and long term psychological outcomes, we will examine whether these courses reduce 12 month recidivism and whether they attend follow-on mental health support within the NHS. Further, we would like to get the qualitative views of women attending these Women’s Centre trauma pathways.

In combination with the Casework study in workstream 3, the intention is to offer a robust evidence base to policymakers for the core services and interventions that are offered by Women’s Centres.

Previous research (Phase I: 2017-2023)

Trauma, Health and Social Harm: The WRNA Validation Study

The beginning of the project had the aim to test whether the WRNA works as effectively in England as it does in the US, in terms of predicting the risk of re-offending according to the needs/strengths contained in the WRNA scales. Adaptions can then be made to the existing WRNA to ensure that its scales and scoring are appropriately weighted to the characteristics of this specific population group.

Women who are involved in, or at risk of, the criminal justice system, entering Women’s Centres will be invited to participate in the validation study, from the following pathways:

Prison, with a caseworker and through-the-gate support (TTG);
Liaison and Diversion (L&D) from Police custody, street triage or Mental Health Trusts;
Probation referrals received by the Women’s Centres

Data was collected in three Women’s Organisations: Anawim (Birmingham); The Nelson Trust (Gloucestershire); and Together Women (Leeds). In an initial caseworker interview, participants undertake the WRNA assessment that identifies the individual’s needs and strengths that predict the risk of offending. This initial assessment will be updated at regular points, and then completed with a final interview within 6 months of the baseline being taken. A further 6 months on, criminal conviction data will be sought from the Ministry of Justice Datalab, which will link the risk scores to the actual recidivism outcomes for that individual, as a means to assess the predictive accuracy of the WRNA.

Systematic literature review

This literature review evaluates the existing evidence base relating to female offending and the success of interventions into this offending, since the publication of the Corston report (2007). The review sought to answer the following questions:

- To what extent do women offend and what is the nature of their offending, with specific consideration given to the form these criminal harms take?
- What factors determine female offending, with specific consideration of critical life events and harms that criminal justice involved women experience across the lifecourse?
- How do interventions impact women’s desistance from crime? To what extent do interventions reduce/produce criminal harms, as well as collateral harm?

‘Fragile Lives’ Ethnography

This ethnographic study explored the lived experiences, spaces and contexts in which women transition from custody to the community. The research was conducted in the Anawim Women’s Centre in Birmingham. Data was collected by researchers based within Anawim Women’s Centre across a 15 month period between 2018-2020. During this period, 91 interviews were conducted with Anawim staff and service users, as well as recording 60 separate observations of daily life in Anawim and Dawn House.

WCJR Publications

Reports

Pemberton S., Long., J. Holdsworth, E., Mackenzie, K.,Ruprai, D., & Summers, R. (2025). Women's Risk Needs Assessment UK Validation: Preliminary Findings Report

Team members

Principal Investigator

Professor Simon Pemberton

Researchers

Dr Richard Summers