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I began my inquiry into women's lawbreaking from a disquiet between what I "knew" from academic feminist accounts and what I "saw" as a worker. My understanding of women's lawbreaking came from a distorted representation of women lawbreakers as victims produced by academic feminist scholarship. This distorted representation came from a feminist practice of emphasizing women's victimhood as an explanatory framework. As a result, women have been rendered 'victims' - a representation that relies on women's object, rather than subject, status. Further, this distorted 'victim' representation fails to examine the way women can, and do, negotiate 'structures' to shape their own lives. As a result of my disquiet, I began to ask what is it about victimization that contributes to women's lawbreaking? I adapted Dorothy Smith's method of inquiry to develop a method which includes women's agency and yet retains feminist insights into economic and cultural gender inequities. This method allows one to understand agency in the context of victimization and its entanglement with lawbreaking by understanding the dialectic nature of social interaction. This dialectic understanding of action is important because we can examine not only what things come into view as structural or institutional processes, but also see more clearly the undercurrent of resistance and survival so relevant to feminism. Further, this method looks at women's lawbreaking differently - it captures women's agency as a counter-discourse to existing feminist discourses of victimization. A small research study was conducted for this thesis. Nine women were interviewed about their lives growing up and their experiences with lawbreaking. From this data, three areas were explored: "invalidation", "addiction" and "negotiation". The analysis of these themes explores, and then maps out, courses of women's lawbreaking action and how those courses are coordinated by the ruling relations. This project aims to contribute to feminist scholarship on women's courses of lawbreaking action by offering Smith's method of inquiry as a way to capture both women's agency and how that is coordinated by the organizational and social relations of ruling.

Many women in prison are likely to have children, but for various reasons may not be playing the role of primary caregiver prior to incarceration, and may be unable to fulfill this role when released. This research was designed to investigate the interpersonal difficulties that may contribute to the parenting problems of this unique population. Female offenders have an increased likelihood of personality pathology and history of abuse, creating a set of circumstances that affect these women's ability to have satisfactory relationships. This may be manifested in an orientation towards relationships that could be classified as an insecure attachment style, although it is not the relationship per se that is classified as an insecure attachment style; rather, the insecure attachment style (or pattern) refers to the individual's view of themselves and others, and their attachment style may then influence their responses to others in intimate relationships (e.g., their warmth, caregiving, jealousy, ability to trust, etc). The female offender population provides a distinctive opportunity for investigating the relationships between attachment styles and incarcerated women's personality pathology, experiences with their primary caregivers, as well as their own experiences as mothers. The attachment styles of one hundred eleven incarcerated female inmates were assessed using the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ; Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) and the Experience in Close Relationships Inventory (ECRI; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998), and a sub-sample of these women were interviewed using the Peer Attachment Interview (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). Offenders were also assessed for quality of relationships with parents using the Egna Minnen Betraffande Uppfostran (EMBU; Perris, Jacobsson, Lindstrom, von Knorring, & Perris, 1980), as well as with children using the Parental Stress Scale (PSS; Berry & Jones, 1995) and a Parental Bonding Interview (created specifically for this research to gather information about parent-child relationships, the level of caregiving provided to the child, and the mother's subjective account of her parenting experiences). The SCID-Il Clinical Interview (First, Gibbon, Spitzer, Williams, & Benjamin, 1997) was used to assess for personality disorder characteristics, which have been found in previous research to be prevalent in female offender populations. It was found that three-quarters of the women in the sample had given birth to children, however, 88.4% were no longer playing the role of primary caregiver upon incarceration. Nearly 61% of respondents claimed that social services had taken at least one child away, and 38.2% claimed that they had voluntarily given their children away. Reasons for no longer having custody varied, but the majority of women (70%) reported that drug and alcohol abuse was a major factor. Further, it was found that women in the sample were characterized by insecure attachment styles. Characteristics of personality disorders were present in over 73% of the sample. Results showed a high rate of abuse in childhood by primary caregivers, high levels of parental rejection, and low levels of parental warmth. In addition, participants reported unstable relationships with the fathers of their children. Further, the presence of an insecure attachment style was related to higher mean number of personality disorder characteristics, higher reported means of maternal and paternal rejection, and higher reported means of emotional and physical abuse by fathers. Impression management was found to be an issue with the respect to the majority of the measured utilized in the research. The goal of this research was to attain a greater understanding of the interpersonal difficulties of the female offender population, and how family, romantic, and peer relationships are related to parenting difficulties for these women. These issues, as well as limitations surrounding the use of current attachment measures, are discussed herein.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) for use with a female population. Seventy-five women who were either incarcerated or on probation were assessed using interview and file information. In addition, all subjects completed a battery of self-report inventories that were theoretically relevant to the PCL-R. The results strongly supported the appropriateness of the PCL-R for use with female offenders. The psychometric properties were excellent indicating a homogeneous and unidimensional scale. The factor analysis confirmed a two factor structure representing two distinct aspects of psychopathy; the personological and behavioural dimensions. The pattern of correlations obtained from the self—report inventories was highly similar to that obtained with male samples, further suggesting that the same construct is being measured in both sexes. The implications of these findings in terms of the construct of psychopathy and explanations of women’s criminality are discussed as well as future research and practical implications.

This thesis examines the life experiences of a sample of women in English prisons. It is focused on developing a greater understanding of the experiences and needs of women in prison in areas where the research literature is lacking, or where women s experiences are not yet fully understood. The research is set within the context of significant increases in the women s prison population, developments in policy and practice relating to the treatment of women offenders, and recent reports from the Ministry of Justice that the UK government lacks a thorough understanding of the needs of women in prison. Approved by HM Prison Service National Research Committee, the research includes review of Offender Assessment System records and in-depth interviews with 43 women from three English prisons. Adopting a primarily qualitative approach, the data are thematically analysed with the aid of NVivo to explore women s experiences in childhood and growing up; adult life circumstances; parenthood; alcohol and drug use; mental health; and experiences within prison. Key findings from the research suggest that for many women in prison their past experiences are specific responsivity factors that require focused input in order to tackle the reasons underlying their criminogenic needs. Specifically, the research highlights that women in prison attribute much of their life experience and offending as related to past experiences, but that there is a need to broaden the definitions of childhood trauma and victimisation used when discussing women offenders in order to more fully reflect the lived experiences of women who offend. The research identifies a number of gender specific issues that have been previously neglected in the literature. The findings challenge some of the recent literature around the drug and alcohol use of offenders, and also highlight how poor relationships can exacerbate women s issues with drug and alcohol use. The research provides evidence of consistency in mental health problems experienced by women in prison and the underlying causes of these problems, answering questions concerning the extent to which women s mental health problems exist prior to prison. Furthermore, the research documents how prison can present an opportunity for women to engage with treatment. However, the research also highlights the failure of the prison service to fully record the scale and scope of mental health and emotional problems experienced by women in prison. The thesis concludes that there is a need for a gender-informed focus in prison in both assessment and treatment.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Natural Sciences, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographies.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-238). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 446-470). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.