While it is widely known that most women convicted of crime or serving time in prison are mothers, little research has focused specifically on whether and how the daily activity of mothering affects women’s criminal behaviour. On the one hand, criminalized women often report that parenting is important to them. If mothering reduces the opportunities to engage in crime, strengthens informal controls, and increases the costs of crime, it should discourage offending. On the other hand, the challenges of mothering are particularly onerous for women who are economically disadvantaged, marginalized, and socially isolated – that is, the types of women who are most likely to engage in crime. If children create an imperative for resources that women cannot accommodate legally while simultaneously exacerbating psychological and emotional strains, women may turn to criminal behaviour. Using a sample of 259 criminalized women, I explore the mothering-crime relationship by examining whether the daily responsibilities and demands of living with children affect month-to-month changes in women’s involvement in offending. Controlling for criminalized women’s relationships, socio-economic contexts, living arrangements, and leisure pursuits, I provide quantitative evidence about the relationship between mothering and property crime, drug use, drug dealing, and women’s use of violence against their intimate partners. I supplement this analysis with qualitative evidence from in-depth interviews with these women. Results indicate a non-uniform effect of mothering on criminalized women’s offending: living with children discourages women from engaging in property crime and using drugs, makes no difference to whether or not they deal drugs or engage in ‘mutual’ violence with intimate partners, and increases their use of ‘sole’ violence against intimate partners. I discuss why living with children is an important “local life circumstance” shaping variation in criminalized women’s commission of some, but not all, offences, and consider the policy implications of these findings.

While it is widely known that most women convicted of crime or serving time in prison are mothers, little research has focused specifically on whether and how the daily activity of mothering affects women’s criminal behaviour. On the one hand, criminalized women often report that parenting is important to them. If mothering reduces the opportunities to engage in crime, strengthens informal controls, and increases the costs of crime, it should discourage offending. On the other hand, the challenges of mothering are particularly onerous for women who are economically disadvantaged, marginalized, and socially isolated – that is, the types of women who are most likely to engage in crime. If children create an imperative for resources that women cannot accommodate legally while simultaneously exacerbating psychological and emotional strains, women may turn to criminal behaviour. Using a sample of 259 criminalized women, I explore the mothering-crime relationship by examining whether the daily responsibilities and demands of living with children affect month-to-month changes in women’s involvement in offending. Controlling for criminalized women’s relationships, socio-economic contexts, living arrangements, and leisure pursuits, I provide quantitative evidence about the relationship between mothering and property crime, drug use, drug dealing, and women’s use of violence against their intimate partners. I supplement this analysis with qualitative evidence from in-depth interviews with these women. Results indicate a non-uniform effect of mothering on criminalized women’s offending: living with children discourages women from engaging in property crime and using drugs, makes no difference to whether or not they deal drugs or engage in ‘mutual’ violence with intimate partners, and increases their use of ‘sole’ violence against intimate partners. I discuss why living with children is an important “local life circumstance” shaping variation in criminalized women’s commission of some, but not all, offences, and consider the policy implications of these findings.

This research offers a critical and comprehensive understanding of the current state of prison programming for federally sentenced women in Canada. Its purpose is to map how women prisoners are assessed and processed in terms of their mental health needs and risks and the correctional programs they are required to participate in as part of their correctional rehabilitation plan. By mobilizing a feminist governmentality theoretical lens, the research examines the gendered, neoliberal, and psy management of women prisoners as it occurs through correctional programming interventions and the discourses that underpin the programs in which the women are required to participate. Methodologically, this research draws on over 11,000 pages of documents from the Correctional Service of Canada, which were obtained through a federal Access to Information and Privacy request, as well as eight in-depth, semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated, federally sentenced women. I argue that women's experiences of marginalization and criminalization flow from structural factors that are variously impacted by their intersecting identities and which are subsumed beneath discourses of responsibilization and risk management within the programming documents and largely ignored as a result of the security-focused and risk-centred carceral logics that govern prison life and management. The analysis revealed that programming documents - including facilitator manuals, staff training guides, participant workbooks, policy guidelines, and administrative documents - discursively constitute women as emotionally out of control, motivated primarily by their relationships, and as cognitively flawed. Through discourses of empowerment and care, and by way of self-monitoring strategies and improved self-esteem, women prisoners are tasked with managing their own mental health needs and risks and choosing a path of prescribed rehabilitation. Placing the onus of change squarely on the individual prisoner effectively sets aside the structural factors and contexts that lie at the root of women's criminalization, which women cannot simply "choose" to change. Despite the Correctional Service of Canada's appearance of women-centredness and gender responsivity, women are subject to control, coercion, and intense responsibilization efforts in and through correctional programming initiatives.

Feminist criminologists have a long history of arguing against the use of imprisonment and other formal justice system processes for criminalized women. Often feminist analyses of the formal criminal justice system end with a call for community alternatives. There has not, however, been a corresponding analysis of community programs. Critical criminologists have examined informal justice and have shown the variety of ways that seemingly alternative programs reproduce and support the formal criminal justice system. This dissertation draws from both of these criminological literatures and examines alternative justice programs for criminalized women. Based on interviews with staff at community justice programs in Winnipeg MB, I argue that these programs are neither the complete alternatives called for by feminists nor spaces which simply reproduce dominant justice system norms as found by critical criminologists. Rather, they are complex spaces of governance of criminalized women. The community programs exhibit both informal and formal characteristics. These programs engage in a variety of informal justice practices. The programs also offer informal care, advocacy, and culture services. Alongside these informal aspects of the programs, staff also engage in highly formal criminal justice work of supervision and case processing. I account for the presence of both informal and formal practices using governmentality theorists’ concepts of government-at-a-distance and responsibilization of the community. This makes them spaces in which dominant discourses and practices are reproduced. However, a close examination of the ways in which the programs construct the subject of governance, the Criminalized Woman, shows the influence of feminist discourses and reveals these spaces to be spaces of resistance as well. The specific ways that the programs respond to criminalized women and the mentalities embedded in them also reflect a tension between neoliberal and social justice approaches. Both a neoliberal mentality of proper self-governance and an ethic of care are present in the work the programs do. I argue that the presence of the multiple types of work, the alternative subjectivities offered to criminalized women, and ethic of care and practices of self-care all make the alternative justice programs spaces of resistance to dominant neoliberal strategies of governance. / February 2016

This thesis explores to role of theatre in the lives of criminalized women. It seeks to better understand the ways in which theatre initiatives can be used as a tool for participants through various means, such as potentially being a form of self-expression, or a way to gain voice. This exploration was facilitated by conducting a case study of the Clean Break Theatre Company, a theatre company for criminalized women in London, England. Data was collected through performance and course observations and interviews with twelve women. The final themes shape the exploration as participants identify the importance of self expression through theatre, and its ability to aid in personal transformation or growth. Theatre initiatives are important because they create a unique lens into the experiences of these women, as well as being used as a tool for change in their lives.

Women have historically been the subject of stereotypes – especially criminalized women as they are constructed in the mass media. These stereotypes become particularly problematic when they are invoked in infotainment media – a genre that combines information and entertainment and presents itself as primarily factual. As such, ideological messages delivered through infotainment are also (re)presented as truthful and may be more likely to be taken up by an unquestioning audience. This research aimed to answer the following research question: How does infotainment portray women who commit serious violent crime? In order to answer this question, a qualitative content analysis was employed and “Deadly Women”, a televised infotainment series that narrates and re-enacts true crime stories of women who kill, was selected as a case study. The sample consisted of previously identified typologies: mothers who kill their children, women who kill their partners, adolescent girls who kill, and vigilantes who kill their abusers. Stemming from a critical feminist framework, the analysis revealed that Deadly Women relies on two primary trajectories to explain the violence committed by women and girls. While both trajectories emphasized gendered stereotypes that involved emotionality and mental health issues, they were nonetheless distinct. The first trajectory evoked narratives of the ‘emotionless’ and ‘psychopathic’ perpetrator; while the second trajectory characterized the offender as overly ‘emotional’ and ‘depressed’. These trajectories, along with their related variables, problematically (re)presented violent women and girls in simplistic and dualistic manners that served to obscure rather than to clarify the circumstances surrounding their crimes.

Une femme enceinte sent rapidement les attentes sociales que soulève son état et réalise promptement que des lignes directrices encadrent et régissent son expérience de la maternité. Lorsqu’il est question de toxicomanie et de criminalité, la réprobation sociale est vive puisqu’il est attendu qu’une mère n’adopte pas de tels comportements à défaut de quoi, elle sera sévèrement critiquée ou jugée comme inapte à exercer son rôle de mère. Les écrits scientifiques portant sur la maternité des femmes toxicomanes dressent un portrait plutôt positif de la maternité, tablant sur sa capacité à constituer un agent de changement dans leurs trajectoires de consommation en raison des responsabilités que la maternité incombe, mais également, par le rôle socialement attendu des femmes qui deviennent mères. Toutefois, bien que beaucoup de femmes toxicomanes judiciarisées soient des mères, peu de recherches ont été menées auprès des femmes toxicomanes judiciarisées et moins d’attention a été portée à l’effet que peut avoir la maternité sur leur propre trajectoire de consommation et de criminalité. Cette thèse qualitative a pour objet d’expliquer le rôle de la maternité dans la trajectoire de consommation et de criminalité de mères toxicomanes judiciarisées. De façon plus spécifique, il s’agit de saisir le sens que prend la maternité pour les femmes toxicomanes judiciarisées et de sonder la façon dont elles s’expliquent leur rôle de mère. La thèse vise également à comprendre, selon leur point de vue, quels sont les liens entre la maternité et leur toxicomanie et enfin, à expliquer leurs perceptions quant aux influences entre la maternité et la criminalité. Trente-huit entrevues semi-dirigées ont été menées auprès de mères détenues ainsi qu’auprès de mères recevant des services externes d’un programme de traitement dans un centre de réadaptation en toxicomanie. Une analyse phénoménologique a permis de saisir la complexité des liens entre la maternité, la toxicomanie et la criminalité des femmes rencontrées ainsi que le poids des attentes sociales sur leur expérience de la maternité. Deux conceptions de la maternité émergent du corpus : une conception idéalisée, où la maternité est vue comme valorisante, épanouissante et conforme aux attentes sociales, ainsi un modèle de «bonne mère déviante», modèle plus ajusté à leur réalité. Ces deux conceptions colorent la façon dont ces mères s’expliquent leur toxicomanie, la possibilité d’être une mère toxicomane ainsi que la perception qu’elles ont de leurs activités criminelles. Un processus de négociation de l’identité maternelle des mères a également été identifié. Au fil d’événements qui fragiliseront l’identité maternelle, une grossesse, la perte de la garde des enfants et une période d’incarcération, ces mères devront à chaque fois profiter du moment de déséquilibre pour susciter une réflexion sur leur style de vie déviant et devront se positionner quant aux deux conceptions de la maternité afin d’arriver à maintenir une identité de mère positive. / Pregnant women quickly understand the prevailing social expectations that their condition implies. They rapidly realize that there are guidelines that shape their mothering experience. When addiction and criminality arise, the social stigma is strong because being a mother does not imply such behaviors. By doing so, they face harsh criticism or being labeled as unfit mothers. Scientific literature on addicted mothers provides a comprehensive view of motherhood where it is perceived rather positively. Motherhood is viewed as being a drive for change because of the responsibilities associated with it as well as the social expectations towards women who become mothers. However, despite the fact that many addicted criminalized women are mothers, few studies have been conducted with addicted criminalized women and far less attention has been directed on the impact that motherhood can have on their drug and crime pathways. This qualitative thesis is aimed at explaining the impact of motherhood on drug and crime pathways of addicted criminalized women. More precisely, the research objective is to grasp the signification of motherhood for addicted criminalized mothers and to comprehend how they make sense of their role. This thesis also aims to understand, in their point of view, what are the links between motherhood and addiction, and finally, their perceptions of the relations between motherhood and criminality. Thirty eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with incarcerated mothers and with mothers who were receiving help regarding their addiction as outpatients in an addiction rehabilitation centre. A phenomenological analysis allowed us to grasp the complexity of the relations between motherhood, addiction and criminality for the women interviewed and the weight of social expectations on their mothering experience. Two visions of motherhood were found: an idealized view where motherhood is seen as worthwhile, fulfilling and true to social expectations and a model of «the good deviant mother», which is more adjusted to their reality. The two visions are influent in the way those mothers interpret their addictions, the possibility of being an addicted mother and on their perceptions of their crimes. A process of maternal identity negotiation was also found, events were identified as weakening their maternal identity. As they experienced their pregnancies, through the losses of their children’s custody and through periods of incarceration, they had to use those moment of instability to reflect upon their deviant lifestyles and position themselves regarding the two views of motherhood to maintain a positive maternal identity.

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