This article makes a first attempt at examining recidivism among federal female offenders.
Female offenders make up a much smaller proportion of the inmate population than male offenders.
Because of this, research on female offenders is not as common as that on male offenders. In this article, we hope to make a small contribution toward understanding recidivism among female offenders. In this study, we included all women serving their first sentence in a federal institution who were released in the 10-year period between 1 January 1978 and 31 December 1988. We followed up these 968 offenders until 30 June 1993 to find out whether they were readmitted to federal custody at any time following their release. Generally, an offender who is considered a safe release risk will be released on full parole.