Adjusting Jailed Women’s Beliefs about Their Friends’ Substance Use May Help Reduce Their Drinking and Risk of Reoffending

Brief interventions can potentially reduce incarcerated women’s alcohol use when they leave jail, according to a new study. Researchers explored jailed women’s impressions of how their friends and acquaintances drank and used drugs (“social norms”). Research shows that people who perceive their friends drinking heavily are more likely to drink heavily themselves, while individuals who realize that their friends in fact drink moderately tend to reduce their own alcohol use. Often, perceptions of substance use in a social network are skewed. Past research on this phenomenon has focused on college students, with slight attention to people involved in the criminal justice system. Two in three incarcerated adults have a substance use disorder — compared to one in ten of the general population — and consequently may regard their own alcohol and drug use as typical. Substance use is strongly implicated in criminal justice involvement and reoffending, especially for women. This study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research is the first to compare incarcerated women’s beliefs about others’ substance use with actual rates of use and to consider ways that addressing their misperceptions may help them reduce or stop drinking.

The study involved 205 women aged 18+ with alcohol use disorder. All the women were awaiting sentencing or serving brief sentences. Researchers interviewed the participants about their recent use of alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, and other drugs. They asked the participants to estimate the use of substances by women in the US general population and among their own friends; to guess what percentage of both groups experienced incarceration; and whether they intended to limit or abstain from alcohol in future. The investigators compared the women’s estimates to national data and used statistical analysis to identify correlations between the women’s perceptions and their plans for drinking after being released from jail.

The participants greatly overestimated US women’s substance use and incarceration rate. They perceived their own friends’ substance use to be lower than what they considered the norm, but far higher than the actual norm. They reported their own use of alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine as higher than they believed their friends to have used. Critically, the more that incarcerated women perceived their friends to be drinking, the less likely they were to aim for reduced drinking or abstinence post-jail. Their perceptions of alcohol use among the general population did not affect their drinking goals.

The new findings could guide the development of single-session interventions with the potential to be more effectively targeted and delivered than conventional treatment for problematic drinking, the researchers concluded. They cautioned that the findings relied on self-reported use, and therefore, may not be generalizable.

Perceived substance use norms among jailed women with alcohol use disorders. C. Timko, Y. Schonbrun, J. Johnson, M. Stein (pages xxx).

ACER-20-4368.R2