UNAFEI’s 175th International Training Course (Online)“Treatment of Women Offenders”
1. Duration and Participants
From 26 October to 11 November 2021
21 overseas participants from 11 jurisdictions
2. Programme Overview
This programme focused on the treatment of women offenders, aiming to enhance knowledge
and understanding on gender-responsive offender treatment in the community and in prisonsby taking into account the gender-specific needs of women offenders. Due to the Covid-19
pandemic, the programme was conducted online. To account for the time differences and workduties of each participant, the participants were divided into two groups, and each group had
live Q&A sessions with the lecturers, discussions and individual presentations online. The
participants were also provided a virtual conference room and chat room through which they
were able to communicate with the UNAFEI faculty and staff members as well as theircolleagues in real time.
3. Lecturers(1) Lectures
Lectures were video-recorded in advance, and the participants watched them on-demand.
They submitted questions to the lecturers online in advance of the live Q&A sessions with thelecturers. Lectures were given by an expert from the United States, ad hoc lecturers from Japanand a UNAFEI faculty member:• Expert from the USA-Dr. Stephanie S. Covington (Co-Director, Institute for Relational Development and CoDirector, Center for Gender & Justice)“Gendered Justice: Creating Services for Women”• Ad hoc lecturers-Ms. KAMIOKA Harue (Founder of the Women’s Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Center“DARC”)“Mother-child Support Programme for Women with Drug Use Disorders and Their Kids”“Outcomes of Interviews with Women with Lived Experiences of Addiction and TheirChildren”-Ms. KINOSHITA Toshimi (President of the women’s halfway house “Ryozenkai”)

“Halfway House (Rehabilitation Facility) ‘Ryozenkai’”-Ms. ODAGIRI Mari (Chief of the Sendai Regional Correction Headquarters)“Characteristics of Women’s Correctional Institutions – Challenges and Solutions”
In addition, Professor TAKAI Ayaka from UNAFEI provided a lecture on “Supervision ofFemale Clients in Community Settings in Japan”.

(2) Q&A Sessions with the Lecturers
The Q&A session with Dr. Covington helped deepen the participants’ understanding on thetheoretical background and scientific evidence that support the idea of gender-responsive
offender treatment, while the Q&A session with the Japanese lecturers focused on the practicalaspects of effective gender-responsive offender treatment in the community and prison
settings. During the Q&A session with Dr. Covington, the participants were divided into two
breakout rooms to discuss and propose a plan to put into practice the Guiding Principles for
Gender-Responsive Services recommended by Dr. Covington in her lecture. Each grouppresented the outcomes of their discussions and was given feedback by Dr. Covington.
(3) Action Plans
At the end of the programme, participants were required to make and present their action plans
to improve the treatment of women offenders in each jurisdiction based on what they hadlearned throughout the programme. It was obvious from the Action Plans presented by theparticipants that everyone remarkably enhanced their understanding on gender-responsive
offender treatment and was eager to put their plans into practice in their jurisdictions, and a
lot of interesting ideas were proposed to achieve gender-responsive offender treatment.
4. Feedback from the Participants
We received a lot of positive feedback from the participants, such as “This was the first time tolearn about the concept of ‘gender-responsiveness’”, and “It was a great experience to share
our practices with other participants”. There were also many requests for in-person training andfollow-up training. We are sure that all the participants will make the most of what they havelearned throughout the programme, and despite the inability to meet in person, it was worth
providing the opportunity to learn from each other online.
5. Comments from the Programming Officer (Professor SASAKI Ayako)
The concept of gender-responsive offender treatment and its practical application is relatively
new in the long history of corrections in Japan, and while it seemed to be alien to theparticipants at the beginning of this programme, we saw that women offenders in every
jurisdiction share many similar issues in areas such as drug addiction, traumatic experiences,intimate relationship violence and abuse, and parental responsibilities. It was also clear that theparticipants had been aware of those issues in their daily duties of treating women offenders
and that the concept of gender responsiveness provided the participants with a theoreticalframework and scientific approach that would be useful in practice. The course also enabled
the participants to share a lot of suggestions on how to effectively handle practical issues.
During the programme, I was pleased to hear from some participants that they had alreadyshared with their colleagues the knowledge they gained through this programme, and I am
confident that the outcomes of this programme will contribute to the development of treatmentof women offenders in their respective jurisdictions.