In 1991, the State of Texas embarked on the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to provide substance abuse treatment to criminal offenders: the Texas Criminal Justice Drug Treatment Initiative. This report describes a study of the future employment needs of women offenders in the Initiative, and offers programmatic recommendations to help meet those needs. The report also examines the Initiative's policy of providing substance abuse treatment to women probationers on the grounds of a state prison. It argues that this policy decreases the employability of women offenders as determined by key employability factors, and that the alternate policy of providing drug treatment to probationers in community-based programs would be likely to increase employability.
