A gender-responsive, trauma-informed treatment program for mental health, addiction, and domestic violence professionals working within the criminal justice system

Beyond Violence: A Prevention Program for Criminal Justice Involved Women is a forty-hour, evidence-based treatment program specifically developed for women who have committed aggressive or violent crimes and are in prisons, jails, and community correctional settings.

The curriculum employs the Social-Ecological Model used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to understand violence, as well as by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) research on women in prison. This four-level model of violence prevention considers the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors. It addresses the key issues that put women at risk for experiencing or perpetrating violence.

Included in this package are:

Facilitator Guide presenting a 20-session format, with the theory, structure, and content needed to run effective groups. Written for those who will be facilitating the Beyond Violence program, the guide provides an overall description of the program, step-by-step instructions for conducting each session, and What I Want My Words to Do to You, an award-winning documentary DVD offering an unprecedented look in the hearts and minds of women in a maximum-security prison. Participant Workbook designed to allow women to process, record, and refer back to their therapeutic experience. Participants can use this workbook to review the content of the sessions, express their thoughts and reactions, and complete activities during and after sessions. In addition, it helps participants learn new skills, including communication, conflict resolution, de-escalation strategies, decision-making, and calming self-soothing techniques.

Praise for Beyond Violence

A pioneer in trauma-informed and gender-responsive treatment for prisoners, Covington has once again brought to the field an immensely important, timely, and useful resource. Beyond Violence offers an approach to working with imprisoned women that is approachable and adaptable. Beyond Violence offers the opportunity for imprisoned women to understand their trauma, relate their experience to their justice system involvement, and begin a journey toward recovery. As always, Covington’s work is thoughtful, sensitive, and well organized. It provides facilitators with tools that are understandable and useable. Her work is insightful, smart, and on target.

Martin F. Horn, Distinguished Lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Executive Director, New York State Sentencing Commission

No one is more qualified than Stephanie Covington to design this prevention program for women tangled in the criminal legal system. Her decades-long commitment to incarcerated women and girls, research on these women and girls, and practices to best assist them is unprecedented. Even knowing all of this, I am impressed with the comprehensiveness, compassion, creativity, and sensibility of the Beyond Violence curriculum and design.

Joanne Belknap, PhD, Professor and Department Chair of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder; President-Elect, American Society of Criminology