In Her Own Words: Women Offenders' Views on Crime and Victimization An Anthology

by Alarid, Leanne Fiftal; Cromwell, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780195330687
• ISBN10: 0195330684
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-29
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In Her Own Words: Women Offenders' Views on Crime and Victimization offers first-hand accounts of women's experience with crime and victimization and provides a rare opportunity for students to view the world from the perspective of the female offender. The text is designed to offer a surrogate experience--an inside view on how female law-breaking behavior overlaps with victimization in some cases, and how law breaking is a rational choice in others. The authors of each article befriend, observe, and interview women who are involved in lawbreaking behaviors and may also themselves be victimized. Topics include sex work, drugs, violent crime, property crime, desistance from crime, and women as victims of crime. Students will encounter women who have engaged in prostitution, murder, robbery, drug dealing and gang activities--all of whom discuss their motives, perceptions, decision-making strategies, and rationalizations for crime. The data from these ethnographic studies provide abundant description and detail about the personal experiences and perspectives of offenders so that readers understand the commonalities shared by both criminalized and victimized women. In every case, however, the story is told from the perspective, and in the words of, the offender. In Her Own Words takes a "pathways to crime" approach and assumes that present cultural values define what is considered illegal, immoral, or in need of government intervention. The book places the interviews in a theoretical and social scientific context so that the reader can better understand how much of female offending behavior is linked to prior victimization and how much is rational choice. The law tends to criminalize individuals who face victimization from domestic abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, or are marginalized in some way through poverty or discrimination. As such, a criminalized woman may share many commonalities of women who are victimized, such as a feeling of powerlessness or learned helplessness, and involvement in oppressive relationships.

Table of Contents

Section 1

From Victims to Survivors to Offenders: Women's Routes of Entry and Immersion Into Street Crime

Black Women's Pathways to Involvement in Illicit Drug Distribution and Sales

Coping, Resisting, and Surviving: Connecting Women's Law Violations to Their History of Abuse

Naming Oneself Criminal: Gender Differences in Offenders' Identity Negotiation

Section 2

'I'm Calling My Mom': The Meaning of Family and Kinship Among Latina Homegirls

The Lives and Times of Asian-Pacific American Women Methamphetamine Users

The Impact of Mothering on Criminal Offending

Women Who Have Killed Their Children

Section 3

Do Women Play a Primary or a Secondary Role in Felony Offenses? A Comparison by Race/Ethnicity

A Woman's Place Is in the Home: Females and Residential Burglary

Comparing Female Gangs of Various Ethnicities: Young Women of African-American

Young Women and Gang Violence: Gender, Street Offending, and Violent Victimization in Gangs

Section 4

One Woman's Voice: My Mother Was a Whore

Violent Victimization of Street Sex Workers

The Entanglement of Agency, Violence, and Law in the Lives of Women in Prostitution

Homelessness and Temporary Living Arrangements in the Inner-City Crack Culture

Section 5

One Woman's Voice: Stealing in College

Women, Work, and Crime

Property Crime as It Relates to Women Drug Dealers

Up It Up: Gender and the Accomplishment of Street Robbery

Women Who Kill in Drug Market Situations

Pathways Out of Crime: Crime Desistance by Female Street Offenders

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.