An Examination of Narratives From Women Offenders: Are Gender-Specific Reentry Efforts Needed?

Susan V. Koski; S. E. Costanza

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.11.1.04

Authors

Susan V. Koski Central Connecticut State University, U.S.A.
S. E. Costanza University of South Alabama, U.S.A.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.11.1.04

Keywords:

Gender, Reentry, Case Studies, Life Course, Social Bond

Abstract

In this article, data was gathered from interviews and observations using content and historical analysis of several women from a reentry program in Hartford, CT (n=32). Interviews illustrate that examining a gendered approach of female offenders provides an efficient foundation on which to answer the question of whether reentry programs are truly gender-specific. The needs of women are different than men and therefore there should be a difference in treatment upon reentry. Two main purposes are served: to investigate women’s narratives about the reason for criminal activity and to examine their specific needs for gender-specific reentry programming. The value of qualitative research in life trajectories is emphasized as a tool to understand gender-specific needs with a particular focus on the life course dimensions of entrance, success, and timing (Thornberry 1997).

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Susan V. Koski, Central Connecticut State University, U.S.A.

Susan V. Koski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut. She has most recently published articles in the Journal of Ethnicity and Criminal Justice, Journal of Law and Social Deviance, Rivier Academic Journal. Her research specialty areas are qualitative research methods and issues in female reentry.
S. E. Costanza, University of South Alabama, U.S.A.

E. Costanza is an Interim Director of the Center for Public Policy and an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama. He co-authored the book Salvation City: Halfway House Stories. He has been published in Crime Mapping: A Journal of Research and Practice, Journal of Ethnicity and Criminal Justice, Homicide Studies, Police Quarterly, Journal of Crime and Justice, Criminal Justice Review, and Security Journal.

References

Adler, Freda. 1975. Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Offender. New York: McGraw Hill.

Akers, Ronald L. 1998. Social Learning and Social Structure: A Feneral Theory of Crime and Deviance. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Baily, Carol. 2007. A Guide to Qualitative Field Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Belknap, Joanne. 2007. The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Benda, Brent B. 2005. “Gender Differences in Life-Course Theory of Recidivism: A Survival Analysis.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 49(3):325-342. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X04271194

Bloom, Barbara and Stephanie Covington. 2000. Gendered Justice: Programming for Women in Correctional Settings. Paper presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, November 2000.

Bloom, Barbara, Barbara Owen, and Stephanie Covington. 2003. Gender-Responsive Strategies: Research, Practice, and Guiding Principles for Women Offenders. Washington: National Institute of Corrections.

Britt, Chester. 1992. “Constancy and Change in the U.S. Age Distribution of Crime: A Test of the Invariance Hypothesis.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 8:175-187. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066743

Burgess, Robert and Ronald L. Akers. 1966. “A Differential-Association-Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior.” Social Problems 14:128-147. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/798612

Chesney-Lind, Meda. 1997. The Female Offender: Girls, Women, and Crime. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Chesney-Lind, Meda. 1998. “The Forgotten Offender: Women in Prison: From Partial Justice to Vengeful Equity.” Corrections Today 60(7):66-73.

Claus, Ronald et al. 2007. “Does Gender-Specific Substance Abuse Treatment for Women Promote Continuity of Care?” Journal of Substance Abuse 32:27-39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2006.06.013

Cobbina, Jennifer E. 2009. From Prison to Home: Women’s Pathways In and Out of Crime. Retrieved December 05, 2014 https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/226812.pdf

Covington, Stephanie. 2003. “A Women’s Journey Home: Challenges for Female Offenders.” Pp. 127-148 in Prisoners Once Removed: The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities, edited by J. Travis and M. Waul. Washington: The Urban Institute.

Daly, Kathleen. 1992. “A Women’s Pathway to Felony Court: Feminist Theories of Lawbreaking and Problems of Representation.” Southern California Review of Law and Women’s Studies 2:11-52.

DeLisi, Matt. 2002. “Not Just a Boy’s Club: An Empirical Assessment of Female Career Criminals.” Women and Criminal Justice 13(4):27-45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1300/J012v13n04_03

DeLisi, Matt. 2005. Career Criminals in Society. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Elder, Glen H. 1985. Life Course Dynamics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Elder, Glen H. 1994. “Time, Human Agency, and Social Change: Perspectives on the Life Course.” Social Psychology Quarterly 57(1):4-15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2786971

Erickson, Kristan G., Robert Crosnoe, and Sanford M. Dornbusch. 2000. “A Social Process Model of Adolescent Deviance: Combining Social Control and Differential Association Perspectives. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 16:395-425. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005163724952

Farrington, David P. 1986. “Age and Crime.” Pp. 189-250 in Crime and Justice, edited by N. Morris and M. Tonry. Chicago: University Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/449114

Fishbein, Martin, (ed.). 1967. “Attitude and the Prediction of Behavior.” Pp. 47-492 in Readings in Attitude Theory and Measurement. New York: Wiley.

Frost, Natasha A., Judith Greene, and Kevin Pranis. 2006. Hard Hit: The Growth in the Imprisonment of Women. Report for the Institute on Women and Criminal Justice. Retrieved December 06, 2014 http://csdp.org/research/HardHitReport4.pdf

Gaardner, Emily and Joanne Belknap. 2002. “Tenuous Borders: Girls Transferred to Adult Court.” Criminology 40:481-517. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2002.tb00964.x

Giordano, Peggy C., Jill A. Deines, and Stephen A. Cernkovich. 2006. “In and Out of Crime: A Life Course Perspective on Girls’ Delinquency.” Pp. 17-40 in Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending, edited by K. Heimer and C. Kruttschnitt. New York: New York University Press.

Glaze, Lauren E. and Thomas P. Bonczar. 2009. Probation and Parole in the United States, 2008. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved December 05, 2014 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ppus08.pdf

Glueck, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. 1930. 500 Criminal Careers. New York: Knopf.

Glueck, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. 1950. Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.

Goodstein, Lynne. 2006. “Gender, Crime, and Criminal Justice.” Pp. 1-11 in Rethinking Gender Crime, and Justice, edited by C. Renzetti, L. Goodstein, and S. Miller. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company.

Gottfredson, Michael and Travis Hirschi. 1990. A General Theory of Crime. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Greenfeld, Lawrence A. and Tracy A. Snell. 1999. Women Offenders. Washington: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Heilbrun, Kirk et al. 2008. “How Specific Are Gender-Specific Rehabilitation Needs? An Empirical Analysis.” Criminal Justice and Behavior 35(11):1382-1397. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854808323678

Hirschi, Travis. 1969. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hirschi, Travis and Michael Gottfredson. 1983. “Age and the Explanations of Crime.” American Journal of Sociology 89:552-584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/227905

Hutchison, Elizabeth. 2005. “The Life Course Perspective: A Promising Approach for Bridging the Micro and Macro Worlds for Social Workers.” Families in Society 86:143-152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1606/1044-3894.1886

Hutchison, Elizabeth. 2007. Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course. Thousand Oakes: Sage.

Kilburn, John C. and Jenifer Lee, (eds.). 2010. “Family and Social Influences on Violent Crime.” Pp. 19-35 in Violent Crime: Clinical and Social Implications. Thousand Oaks: Sage. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483349305.n2

Kilpatrick, Dean, Benjamin Saunders, and Daniel Smith. 2003. Youth Victimization: Prevalence and Implications. Washington: National Institute of Justice. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/e375762004-001

Merlo, Alida and Joycelyn Pollock, (eds.). 1995. Women Law and Social Control. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Moffitt, Terrie E. 1993. “Adolescent-Limited and Life-Course-Persistent Antisocial Behavior: A Developmental Taxonomy.” Psychological Review 100(4):674-701. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.4.674

Nagin, Daniel S. and Kenneth C. Land. 1993. “Age, Criminal Careers, and Population Heterogeneity: Specification and Estimation of a Nonparametric, Mixed Poisson Model.” Criminology 29:327-362. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1993.tb01133.x

Owen, Barbara. 1998. In the Mix: Struggle and Survival in a Women’s Prison. Albany: State University of Albany Press.

Piquero, Alex and Paul Mazerolle. 2001. Life-Course Criminology: Contemporary and Classic Readings. Belmont: Wadsworth.

Poletta, Francesca. 2009. “How to Tell a New Story About Battering.” Violence Against Women 15(12):1490-1508. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801209347093

Pollock, Joycelyn. 2002. Women, Prison, and Crime. Belmont: Wadsworth.

Pollock, Joycelyn. 2009. “Afterword: A Woman Doing Life: Notes From a Prison for Women.” Pp. 176-185 in A Woman Doing Life: Notes From a Prison for Women, authored by E. George. New York: Oxford University Press.

Reifler, Ellen. 1997. “Time Warp in a Toy Store.” New Moon Network 4(3):1.

Richards, Pamela and Charles Tittle. 1981. “Gender and Perceived Chances of Arrest.” Social Forces 59:1182-1199. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2577988

Rivera, Jenny. 1997. “Domestic Violence Against Latinas by Latino Males: An Analysis of Race, National Origin, and Gender Differentials.” Pp. 259-266 in Critical Race Feminism: A Reader, edited by A. K. Wing. New York: New York University Press.

Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 1992. “Crime and Deviance in the Life Course.” Annual Review of Sociology 18: 63-84. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.18.080192.000431

Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 1993. Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128793039003010

Schutt, Russell. 2012. Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Shover, Neal and Carol Thompson. 1992. “Age, Differential Expectations, and Crime Desistance.” Criminology 30: 89-104. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1992.tb01094.x

Simon, Rita. 1975. Women and Crime. Lexington: D.C. Heath.

Smart, Carol. 1989. Feminism and the Power of Law. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Steffensmeier, Darrell and Emilie Allan. 1996. “Gender and Crime: Toward a Gendered Theory of Offending.” Annual Review of Sociology 22:459-487. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.22.1.459

Sutherland, Edwin H. 1947. Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia: Lippincott.

Thornberry, Terence P., (ed.). 1997. Introduction: Some Advantages of Developmental and Life-Course Perspectives for the Study of Crime and Delinquency. Developmental Theories of Crime and Delinquency: Advances in Criminological Theory. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

van Wormer, Katherine S. and Clemens Bartollas. 2007. Women and the Criminal Justice System. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Wilson, Margo and Martin Daly. 1993. “A Lifespan Perspective on Homicidal Violence: The Young Male Syndrome.” Pp. 29-38 in Questions and Answers in Lethal and Non-lethal Violence, edited by C. R. Block and R. L. Block. Washington: National Institute of Justice.

Zaplin, Ruth, (ed.). 2008. Female Offenders: Critical Perspectives and Effective Interventions. Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.