Women Decision-Making and Responsibility-Taking of Criminal Lifestyle: The Israeli Case

Abstract

This study aims to investigate patterns of decision-making and responsibility-taking as opposed to the compulsion process selection of a criminal lifestyle among women in prison. A life story approach and semi-structured interviews sampling 30 Israeli women in prison during their first imprisonment were used. Using a mixed-method, results revealed that most of the participants claimed full or partial self-responsibility for having engaged in a criminal lifestyle or for the offense of which they had been convicted. This figure was consistent when the participants were divided by age of first offense or a history of abuse. The results support the need for an integrated approach explaining women’s criminal paths, including gender-specific as well as gender-neutral factors. The conclusion is that responsibility-taking for a criminal act should be one of the factors in intervention programs for women with delinquent behavior, regardless of whether there is a history of victimization or not.

Keywords

incarcerated women decision-making criminogenic needs life course abuse

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abulafia

(2005). The social construction of victimization among prisoners [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Bar Ilan University. (In Hebrew)

Abulafia

(2008). Construction victimization as a tool for risk assessment of sex offenders: Is -it? In Shoham

(Ed.), The supervision of sex offenders in Israel: Punishment versus treatment (pp. 63–90). Perlstein Genosar. (In Hebrew)

Ajzenstadt

(2009). The relative autonomy of women offenders’ decision making. Theoretical Criminology, 13, 201–225. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480609102879

Akers

(2017). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance. Routledge.

Andrews

D. A.

Bonta

Hoge

R. D.

(1990). Classification for effective rehabilitation: Rediscovering psychology. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 17, 19–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854890017001004

Andrews

D. A.

Bonta

Wormith

J. S.

(2006). The recent past and near future of risk and/or need assessment. Crime and Delinquency, 52(1), 7–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128705281756

Beech

Fordham

A. S.

(1997). Therapeutic climate of sexual offender treatment programs. Sexual Abuse, 9, 219–237. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02675066

Bertaux

Kolhi

(1984). The life story approach: A continental view. Annual Review of Sociology, 10, 215–237. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.10.080184.001243

Blanchette

Brown

S. L.

(2006). Gender-informed correctional practice: Integrating gender-neutral and gender-specific/responsive paradigms. Women, Girls and Criminal Justice, 7(4), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854812456777

10.

Blanchette

Taylor

(2009). Reintegration of female offenders: Perspectives on what works. Corrections Today, 71(6), 60–63.

11.

Bloom

Owen

B. A.

Covington

(2003). Gender-responsive strategies: Research, practice, and guiding principles for women offenders. https://info.nicic.gov/nicrp/system/files/018017.pdf

12.

Brennan

Breitenbach

Dieterich

Salisbury

E. J.

Van Voorhis

(2012). Women’s pathways to serious and habitual crime: A person-centered analysis incorporating gender responsive factors. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39(11), 1481–1508. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854812456777

13.

Burgess-Proctor

Huebner

B. M.

Durso

J. M.

(2016). Comparing the effects of maternal and paternal incarceration on adult daughters’ and sons’ criminal justice system involvement: A gendered pathways analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(8), 1034–1055. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854816643122

14.

Carson

E. A.

(2020). Prisoners in 2019. Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p19.pdf

15.

Caudy

M. S.

Tillyer

M. S.

Tillyer

(2018). Jail versus probation: A gender-specific test of differential effectiveness and moderators of sanction effects. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 4 5(7), 949–968. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854818766375

16.

Charlopova

Andon

Free

(2020). How fraud offenders rationalize financial crime. In Baker

H. K.

Purda-Heeler

Saadi

(Eds.), Corporate fraud exposed (pp. 39–59). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78973-417-120201004

17.

Chen

Gueta

(2016). Childhood abuse and mental health problems: Does gender matter? Psychiatry, 87, 189–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-015-9371-5

18.

Chesney-Lind

(1989). Girls’ crime and women’s place: Toward a feminist model of female delinquency. Crime and Delinquency, 35(1), 5–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128789035001002

19.

Chesney-Lind

Pasko

(2013). The female offender: Girls, women and crime (3rd ed.). SAGE.

20.

Crouch

McKenzie

(2006). The logic of small samples in interview-based qualitative research. Social Science Information, 45(4), 483–499. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018406069584

21.

Daly

(1992). Women’s pathways to felony court: Feminist theories of lawbreaking and problems of representation. Southern California Review of Law and Women’s Studies, 2(1), 11–52.

22.

Daly

(1994). Gender, crime, and punishment. Yale University Press.

23.

Dargis

Newman

Koenigs

(2016). Clarifying the link between childhood abuse history and psychopathic traits in adult criminal offenders. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research and Treatment, 7(3), 221–228. https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000147

24.

Davidson

Chesney-Lind

(2009). Discounting women: Context matters in risk and need assessment. Critical Criminology, 17, 221–245. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-009-9084-x

25.

Day

J. C.

Zahn

M. A.

Tichavsky

L. P.

(2015). What works for whom? The effects of gender responsive programming on girls and boys in secure detention. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 52(1), 93–129. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427814538033

26.

DeHart

D. D.

(2018). Women’s pathways to crime: A heuristic typology of offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(10), 1461–1482. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854818782568

27.

DeHart

D. D.

Lynch

Belknap

Dass-Brailsford

Green

(2014). Life history models of female offending: The roles of serious mental illness and trauma in women’s pathways to jail. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38(1), 138–151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684313494357

28.

Duarte

de Carvalho

M. J. L.

(2017). Female delinquency in Portugal: What girls have to say about their offending behaviors. Gender Issues, 34(3), 258–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-017-9187-8

29.

Einat

Chen

(2012). Gossip in a maximum-security female prison: An exploratory study. Women and Criminal Justice, 22(2), 108–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2012.662122

30.

Flood-Page

Campbell

Harrington

Miller

(2000). Youth crime: Findings from the 1998/99, youth lifestyles survey (Home Office Research Study No. 209). Home Office.

31.

Fortune

C. A.

Ward

Polaschek

(2014). The Good Lives Model and therapeutic environments in forensic settings. Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, 35(3), 95–104. https://doi.org/10.1108/TC-02-2014-0006

32.

Gaffney

L. R.

McFall

R. M.

(1981). A comparison of social skills in delinquent and nondelinquent adolescent girls using a behavioral role-playing inventory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49(6), 959–967. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.49.6.959

33.

Geraghty

K. A.

Woodhams

(2015). The predictive validity of risk assessment tools for female offenders: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 21, 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.01.002

34.

Gottfredson

M. R.

Hirschi

(1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford University Press.

35.

Goulette

(2020). What are the gender differences in risk and needs of males and females sentenced for white-collar crimes? Criminal Justice Studies, 33(1), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/1478601X.2020.1709951

36.

Guest

Bunce

Johnson

(2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903

37.

Gueta

Chen

(2016). Men and women inmates’ accounts of their pathways to crime: A gender analysis. Deviant Behavior, 37(12), 1459–1472. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2016.1189753

38.

Hau

H. G.

Azad

(2020). Swedish adolescent female offenders with limited delinquency: Exploring family-related narratives from a developmental perspective. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00719-8

39.

Hipwell

A. E.

Beeney

Gebreselassie

S. H.

Stalter

M. R.

Ganesh

Keenan

Stepp

S. D.

(2018). Police contacts, arrests and decreasing self-control and personal responsibility among female adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(12), 1252–1260. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12914

40.

Hollin

C. R.

Palmer

E. J.

(2010). Criminogenic need and women offenders: A critique of the literature. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 11(2), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1348/135532505X57991

41.

Holtfreter

(2015). General theory, gender-specific theory, and white-collar crime. Journal of Financial Crime, 22(4), 422–431. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-12-2014-0062

42.

Jinks

(2018). Saturation in qualitative research: Exploring its conceptualization and operationalization. Quality and Quantity, 52(4), 1893–1907. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0574-8

43.

Kajstura

(2019). Women’s mass incarceration: The whole pie 2019. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019women.html

44.

Kelly

J. F.

Ward

C. L.

(2020). Narratives of gang disengagement among former gang members in South Africa. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 47(11), 1509–1528. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820949603

45.

Kratzer

Hodgins

(1999). A typology of offenders: A test of Moffitt’s theory among males and females from childhood to age 30. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 9(1), 57–73. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbm.291

46.

Kruttschnitt

Carbone-Lopez

K. C.

(2006). Moving beyond the stereotypes: Women subjective accounts of their violent crime. Criminology, 44(2), 321–351. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2006.00051.x

47.

Lieblich

Tuval-Mashiach

Zilber

(1998). Narrative research: Reading, analysis, and interpretation (Vol. 47). SAGE.

48.

Loughran

T. A.

Paternoster

Piquero

A. R.

Pogarsky

(2011). On ambiguity in perceptions of risk: Implications for criminal decision-making and deterrence. Criminology, 49(4), 1029–1061. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2011.00251.x

49.

Mackay

Bowen

Walker

O’Doherty

(2018). Risk factors for female perpetrators of intimate partner violence within criminal justice settings: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 41, 128–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2018.06.004

50.

Maghsoudi

Anaraki

N. R.

Boostani

(2018). Patriarchy as a contextual and gendered pathway to crime: A qualitative study of Iranian women offenders. Quality and Quantity, 52(1), 355–370. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0470-2

51.

Marshall

Cardon

Poddar

Fontenot

(2013). Does sample size matter in qualitative research? A review of qualitative interviews in IS research. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 54(1), 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/08874417.2013.11645667

52.

Martin

Dell

Davis

Guerrieri

(2008). Profile of incarcerated juveniles: Comparison of male and female offenders. Adolescence, 43(171), 607–622.

53.

Miley

L. N.

Fox

Muniz

C. N.

Perkins

DeLisi

(2020). Does childhood victimization predict specific adolescent offending? An analysis of generality versus specificity in the victim-offender overlap. Child Abuse and Neglect, 101, Article 104328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104328

54.

Ministry of Justice. (2018). Statistics on women and the criminal justice system 2017: A Ministry of Justice publication under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/759770/women-criminal-justice-system-2017..pdf

55.

Moffitt

T. E.

Caspi

(2001). Childhood predictors differentiate life-course persistent and adolescent-limited antisocial pathways among males and females. Development and Psychopathology, 13(2), 355–375. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579401002097

56.

Moffitt

T. E.

Caspi

Dickson

Silva

Stanton

(1996). Childhood-onset versus adolescent-onset antisocial conduct problems in males: Natural history from ages 3 to 18 years. Development and Psychopathology, 8(2), 399–424. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579400007161

57.

Neissl

Botchkovar

E. V.

Antonaccio

Hughes

L. A.

(2019). Rational choice and the gender gap in crime: Establishing the generality of rational choice theory in Russia and Ukraine. Justice Quarterly, 36(6), 1096–1121. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2018.1543723

58.

Nuytiens

Christiaens

(2016). Female pathways to crime and prison: Challenging the (US) gendered pathways perspective. European Journal of Criminology, 13(2), 195–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370815608879

59.

Papalia

Ogloff

J. R.

Cutajar

Mullen

P. E.

(2018). Child sexual abuse and criminal offending: Gender-specific effects and the role of abuse characteristics and other adverse outcomes. Child Maltreatment, 23(4), 399–416. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559518785779

60.

Peterson

DeHart

Wright

(2019). Examining the impact of victimization on girls’ delinquency: A study of direct and indirect effects. International Journal of. Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(11), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16111873

61.

Rettinger

L. J.

Andrews

D. A.

(2010). General risk and need, gender specificity, and the recidivism of female offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37(1), 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854809349438

62.

Richie

(1995). Compelled to crime: The gender entrapment of battered, black women. Routledge.

63.

Ryan

J. P.

Testa

M. F.

(2005). Child maltreatment and juvenile delinquency: Investigating the role of placement and placement instability. Children and Youth Services Review, 27(3), 227–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2004.05.007

64.

Saldaňa

(2012). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (2nd ed.). SAGE.

65.

Salisbury

Van Voorhis

(2009). Gendered pathways: A quantitative investigation of women probationers’ paths to incarceration. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36(6), 541–566. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854809334076

66.

Sampson

R. J.

Laub

J. H.

(2017). Life-course desisters? Trajectories of crime among delinquent boys followed to age 70. In McGee

T. R.

Mazerolle

(Eds.), Developmental and life-course criminological theories (pp. 37–74). Routledge.

67.

Saunders

Sim

Kingstone

Baker

Waterfield

Bartlam

Burroughs

Saxena

Messina

N. P.

Grella

C. E.

(2014). Who benefits from gender-responsive treatment? Accounting for abuse history on longitudinal outcomes for women in prison. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 41(4), 417–432. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854813514405

68.

Scott

C. K.

Grella

C. E.

Dennis

M. L.

Funk

R. R.

(2016). A time-varying model of risk for predicting recidivism among women offenders over 3 years following their release from jail. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(9), 1137–1158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854816632551

69.

Shechory-Bitton

Perry

Addad

(2011). Pathways to women’s crime: Differences among women convicted of drug, violence and fraud offenses. The Journal of Social Psychology, 151(4), 399–416. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2010.503721

70.

Simpson

S. S.

Alper

Dugan

Horney

Kruttschnitt

Gartner

(2016). Age-graded pathways into crime: Evidence from a multi-site retrospective study of incarcerated women. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, 2, 296–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-016-0042-5

71.

Simpson

S. S.

Yahner

J. L.

Dugan

(2008). Understanding women’s pathways to jail: Analyzing the lives of incarcerated women. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 41(1), 84–108. https://doi.org/10.1375/acri.41.1.84

72.

Strauss

Corbin

(1990). Basics of qualitative research. SAGE.

73.

Thomas

C. W.

(1977). Theoretical perspectives on prisonization: A comparison of the importation and deprivation models. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 68(1), 135–145. https://doi.org/10.2307/1142482

74.

Tombs

Jagger

(2006). Denying responsibility: Sentencers’ accounts of their decisions to imprison. The British Journal of Criminology, 46(5), 803–821. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azl002

75.

Trauffer

Widom

C. S.

(2017). Child abuse and neglect and psychiatric disorders in nonviolent and violent female offenders. Violence and Gender, 4(4), 137–143. https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2017.0019

76.

U.S. Sentencing Commission. (2020). Quick facts: Women in the Federal offender population. https://www.ussc.gov/research/quick-facts/female-offenders

77.

Van der Put

C. E.

Lanctôt

De Ruiter

Van Vugt

. (2015). Child maltreatment among boy and girl probationers: Does type of maltreatment make a difference in offending behavior and psychosocial problems? Child Abuse and Neglect, 46, 142–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2015.05.012

78.

Vos

H. M.

Schellevis

F. G.

van den Berkmortel

van den Heuvel

L. G.

Bor

H. H.

Lagro-Janssen

A. L.

(2013). Does prevention of risk behavior in primary care require a gender-specific approach? A cross-sectional study. Family Practice, 30(2), 179–184. https://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cms064

79.

Walmsley

(2017). World Female Imprisonment List: Women and girls in penal institutions, including pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners (4th ed.). https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_female_prison_4th_edn_v4_web.pdf

80.

Walters

G. D.

(2003). Changes in criminal thinking and identity in novice and experienced inmates: Prisonization revisited. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 30(4), 399–421. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854803253137

81.

Watts

S. J.

Iratzoqui

(2019). Gender, child maltreatment, and delinquency. Victims and Offenders, 14(2), 165–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2018.1557091

82.

Wright

Schneider

S. L.

(2017). Understanding resistance, denial, and responsibility in offender treatment. In Ireland

J. L.

Ireland

C. A.

Fisher

Gredecki

(Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of forensic psychology in secure settings (pp. 55–68). Routledge.

83.

Yacimovich-Cohen

(2017). Aspects of women’s incarceration in Israel [Submitted to the committee for the advancement of the status of women and for gender equality]. Knesset Research and Information Center. (In Hebrew)