Unfortunately, corrections' researchers routinely fail to contextualize their work. For instance, the findings of Blanchette must be considered with the context that:

1. 82 per cent of all women prisoners, and 90 per cent of Aboriginal women alone, who are sentenced to federal terms of imprisonment, have experienced serious histories of physical and/or sexual abuse;
2. there is a high correlation between histories of sexual abuse and self-injurious behaviour;
3. at a minimum, at least approximately 25 per cent of women in the general population have experienced sexual abuse, yet fewer than 1 per cent ever end up criminalized.

Outside of corrections' research, there is no valid or reliable evidence to substantiate claims that there is a causal relationship between self-injurious behaviour and suicide attempts and violent offending. Indeed, the only way researchers can find a correlation between these factors is if they only focus on "researching" prisoners. It is not surprising that research on a population of women prisoners serving two years or more, approximately half of whom are imprisoned as a result of convictions for "violent" offences, 82 per cent of whom have been sexually abused and the majority of whom have engaged in self-injurious and suicidal behaviour, finds a correlation between these factors.

Unfortunately such findings have resulted in correctional justifications for the adaptation of programs developed by and for men who are violent for use with women prisoners, many of whom have been convicted of violent offences after they reacting to or defended themselves or others in situations where they were the targets of the "victims'" violence. As Elizabeth Comack's recent research reveals, women who use violence generally do so in different ways and for different reasons than do most men. It was in an attempt to address and alleviate the discriminatory treatment of women prisoners that groups such as CAEFS have long advocated the need for women-directed and gender-specific approaches. As the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women articulated, federally- sentenced women have more in common with other women, than they do with imprisoned men.

Furthermore, as Kathy Kendall points out in her research, male-based programs "devalue and silence the voices and experiences of women prisoners ... [and] may serve to adjust women to oppressive penal practices while de-politicizing and individualizing their circumstances." Kendall goes on to challenge what she refers to as, "two prevailing myths: that women don't get angry and that those women who do are worse than angry men. Consequently women tend to suppress their anger." Ms. Kendall then goes on to discuss the reality that, research focussed upon women's special needs "assumes a male norm that is often rooted in traditional assumptions about women which in turn reinforce stereotypes of femininity." She then proceeds to discuss, the reality that "angry aggression is intensified within prisons because they encourage such a response...[and that] prison environment and broader social and economic structures must be altered rather than simply create psychological and individual ones" (36).