Abstract
Research has shown that many women involved in the criminal justice system have prior experiences of trauma and victimisation. This paper, based on qualitative narrative research with mothers, identifies the specific gendered trauma trajectories of mothers with experience of custody in England. This includes experiences of domestic abuse, removal of children and issues with perinatal mental health. In many instances, these issues are closely interrelated adding further layers of cumulative impact to the trauma experienced. Drawing on trauma theory and pathways theory, these experiences are then analysed and suggestions for mitigating the impact of this trauma are proposed.
Introduction
Although women only make up around 4% of the prison population in England and Wales (Ministry of Justice, 2022), the impact of their imprisonment can be far reaching. It is estimated that around two-thirds of women in prison are mothers with dependent children (Caddle and Crisp, 1997; Ministry of Justice, 2018b), with more who are grandmothers or who have older children although in England and Wales this data is not routinely collected. Previous research has suggested that many women in contact with the criminal justice system will have experienced prior trauma in their lives (Anderson et al., 2020; Cook et al., 2005; Green et al., 2005). Traumatic experiences may include, for example, childhood abuse and sexual abuse, witnessing violence in the home, intimate partner violence or sexual assault. It may also include wider social experiences such as racism, gender-based-violence and damaging experiences of public services.
Since the publication of the Corston report (Corston, 2007), there has been heightened awareness of the needs and vulnerabilities of women involved in the criminal justice system in England and Wales. This has led to increased calls for gender-specific approaches to working within the criminal justice system and questions arising in particular around the treatment of pregnant women and new mothers (Abbott et al., 2020). In addition, trauma-informed approaches have been instigated in many services, including within the prison estate and probation service (Petrillo, 2021). Although these advances are welcomed, there is still a lack of specific understanding about the gendered trauma experiences of women and mothers and how these may impact on their lives and offending behaviour. This paper gives evidence from research with mothers on probation with experience of prison around their gendered experiences of trauma, focussing on three specific areas: domestic abuse, child removal and perinatal mental health.
Defining trauma
Increasingly, the role of trauma in women's mental wellbeing and subsequent offending behaviour has become well recognised (Greene et al., 2000; Segrave and Carlton, 2010). Its use as a term to describe the experience of harm has now become familiar in many health, social care, and also criminal justice settings. It is often applied alongside the concept of ‘trauma-informed’ approaches and services, which aim to provide a safe and non-triggering environment that improves and maintains wellbeing (Kubiak et al., 2017). The challenges of introducing trauma-informed practice within the criminal justice system include the tensions that arise between the roles of punishment and care and rehabilitation (Vaswani and Paul, 2019). Further, Carlton and Russell (2023) discuss how for women specifically, trauma-informed approaches can be used as a weapon when trauma is seen as a criminogenic risk, justifying additional penal control. There may also be a failure to acknowledge the wider societal causes of the trauma that many women may have experienced.
There are gender differences in both the likelihood of experiencing specific types of trauma and how we as individuals may react to it. Women are approximately twice as likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with a lifetime prevalence of 10.4% compared to 5% for men (Kessler et al., 1995) which can be attributed to their greater likelihood of being victims of certain types of traumatic event such as interpersonal and sexual violence (Cortina and Kubiak, 2006). It is now acknowledged that living in the context of an abusive relationship and struggling both physically and emotionally to survive in it can result in trauma. It is also agreed that victims of domestic abuse can experience PTSD, which may be as a result of major traumatic events but can also be as a result of ongoing experiences of emotional abuse (Herman-Lewis, 1992a). Tseris (2013: 4) argues that the ‘trauma of long-term abuse is a qualitatively different experience’. Others also describe how trauma arising from interpersonal violence or abuse from someone who is a partner or caregiver can have effects which are qualitatively different. This may cause the individual to lose trust and a sense of self and become overwhelmed by feelings of disempowerment and helplessness (Herman-Lewis, 1992b; Straussner and Calnan, 2014).
Different types of trauma have been identified, including ‘insidious trauma’ arising from many small traumatic experiences that build upon one another (Brown, 2004), in addition to the more well-known ‘acute’ trauma resulting from a single traumatic event. Trauma may also arise vicariously from witnessing events rather than being directly involved in them; in addition, how others present react to events can also add to or constitute the trauma. Historical or transgenerational/intergenerational trauma, which has predominantly been studied by those working with families of holocaust survivors and indigenous groups, is seen as affecting a community over time and being passed on through the generations either directly or indirectly (Braveheart-Jordan and DeBruyn, 1995; Menzies, 2010). This has particular relevance to mothers and their families who experience the impact of maternal imprisonment.
Maternal identities
It continues to be the case for many women that once they become mothers they are expected to take on the majority of responsibility for childcare. It has been argued that this means that mothers’ experiences of the criminal justice system and custody, in particular, are very much shaped by their role as mothers and caregivers (Baldwin, 2017; Booth, 2017). Gendered experiences of prison include separation from children, removal from the maternal role, and for some women, the experience of being pregnant and giving birth in prison (Abbott et al., 2020; Baldwin, 2022; Booth, 2020). For many mothers, these experiences are the primary experience of prison for them. Research has shown that the impacts on children of a mother being imprisoned can include the greater likelihood that children will have to move home and no longer be cared for by a parent (Corston, 2007), and the wider impacts of this which may involve moving school and consequent loss of friendships.
Much research with mothers involved in the criminal justice system has documented the impact this has on maternal identity and the problems this creates with mother/child relationships (Baldwin, 2022; Masson, 2019). For those who have children removed prior to entering prison, custody adds further difficulty to attempts to maintain contact. It has been suggested that mothers in custody feel increased guilt and shame compared to those who are not mothers (Easterling et al., 2019). Additionally, wider societal views of mothers who have offended add to the stigma encountered, as evidenced by Rutter and Barr (2021). However, for some women, and mothers, custody may provide a place of safety for those who are experiencing domestic abuse in the community and for those who are able to detox from drugs and/or alcohol use (Bradley and Davino, 2002).
Trauma and offending pathways
Several theories have emerged regarding women and mothers’ prior life experiences and the impact this may have on future offending and involvement with the criminal justice system. This links into recent work concerning trauma and victimisation and its effects and wider research regarding women's offending behaviour. These approaches aim to identify what may have led to women becoming involved in offending in order to identify more closely where interventions can be made.
Pathways approaches to women's offending investigate the links between women and girls’ previous life experiences and later offending behaviour (Daly, 1992; DeHart, 2008; Simpson et al., 2008). There is a strong relationship between traumatic experiences and poor mental health, with links also to substance misuse and self-harm as coping mechanisms (Belknap et al., 2016; Green et al., 2005). Often these behaviours are seen as stemming from individual rather than social issues. Pathways theory (Daly, 1992) identified abuse, substance misuse, homelessness and economic issues as experiences that may be linked to offending for women. Additional research looks at women's victimisation histories and the effect these may have on later offending. Criminal justice system-involved women have often been exposed to traumatic events as victims of childhood or sexual abuse, which have then resulted in withdrawal from school and home life and a journey into offending behaviour (DeHart, 2008). DeHart (2008) further describes how women can become marginalised from support systems due to experiences of victimisation. Segrave and Carlton (2010) focus specifically on the enduring impact of domestic abuse on women, also detailing the effects on children and grandchildren.
Trauma theory (Burstow, 2003) also highlights the interaction between prior experiences and female offending and criminalisation. These experiences are often cumulative in nature reflecting work on insidious trauma (see previous section), interacting to produce significant adverse risks for women. However, care must be taken not to stigmatise women by labelling them as ‘traumatised’ and making assumptions about the impact of prior experiences. There have also been questions raised about what trauma-informed practice means in practical terms and whether the criminal justice system can truly be ‘trauma-informed’ due to its largely punitive role.
Methods
The study was undertaken as doctoral research by the author, who as a practitioner had previous links in this area. A qualitative narrative approach was used to fully understand the experiences of mothers involved in the criminal justice system. Research questions were:
What evidence is there of the existence of trauma in mother's lives prior to going to prison and what effect does it have? How are mother's lives affected by imprisonment and how do they maintain relationships with their children? Do the intergenerational harms of maternal imprisonment persist after the period of custody?
Interviews were carried out with 19 mothers with experience of prison and 10 practitioners working with criminal justice-involved women in England. Women were recruited via a Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and a charity, and the majority of the mothers were on probation, 14 of those as a result of their recent period in custody and the remainder due to new offences. Their ages ranged from 22 to 60 years. Women were either referred by a CRC worker or contacted during their attendance at a women's hub. Interviews were carried out at CRC offices and women's hubs and lasted between 25 and 80 min. Interviews focussed on the mothers’ stories and experiences of custody and the impact this had on their lives, allowing them to choose what to say or not to say (Squire et al., 2014). The women had between one and four children each, with six mothers not having children in their care before custody and an additional three becoming permanently separated post-custody. Practitioners spoken to included probation officers and voluntary sector workers who specialised in working with criminalised women and their families. Data from practitioner interviews have not been included in this paper.
Ethical considerations including informed consent, anonymity and data protection were prioritised throughout the research, and all those who participated were spoken to in an environment where support was readily available. Pseudonyms have been used throughout, and the minimum of personal data was collected and stored. Within the cases presented, some personal details have been changed to provide further anonymity. Full ethical consent was obtained for the research prior to its commencement from HMPPS and the host university in addition to ongoing consultation with the agencies whose services were accessed during the fieldwork.
Data was analysed thematically using narrative approaches applying a model developed from a socio-ecological theory, which places experiences within a series of nested levels – individual, family, community, and society. This enabled understanding of both the personal and wider social experiences of mothers in the criminal justice system. Some factors could be understood as cutting across many of these levels, for instance, experiences of domestic abuse. Trauma theory was also used to further understand the women's experiences (Burstow, 2003; Tseris, 2013), and a model based on the concept of intergenerational trauma was developed.
Key findings: Gendered trauma, offending and coping
Experiences of prior trauma were frequent among the mothers spoken to and of particular importance were what could be deemed gendered trauma experiences. These included experiences of domestic abuse and coercion, removal of and loss of children and mental health experiences related directly to pregnancy and the perinatal period. These events were often intimately entwined with many women experiencing two or more of these issues concurrently.
The impact of coercion and domestic abuse
Domestic abuse has been widely identified as a common experience for women involved in the criminal justice system and particularly for those entering prison (Corston, 2007; Ministry of Justice, 2018a). It often affects all areas of a woman's life and results in an inability to feel safe anywhere, with some research suggesting that, for a minority of women, custody provides a safe haven (Bradley and Davino, 2002). Women's strategies to survive abuse may not always make sense to someone outside of the situation, particularly when this results in the removal of children due to the abuse. The impact on children living within such a situation is also significant, and there are sometimes few options for social workers other than to remove children from the family, adding further trauma (Peckover and Trotter, 2015).
In total, 5 of the 19 women spoken with disclosed experiences of domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is not usually a one-off event but a series of behaviours that increase over time and worsen (Renzetti et al., 2018). It has been argued that abuse from someone who is supposed to love and care for you has much more devastating long-term effects as it destroys trust, safety and a sense of self (Herman-Lewis, 1992b).
It is evident that domestic abuse can be a risk to women's lives in terms of offending, on several levels; firstly, through coercion to commit or cover up for crimes (see ‘Kerry’ and ‘Lisa’); and secondly, due to the consequences, such as removal of children (see ‘Tammy’) which can lead to despair, giving up and financial impacts. Barr and Christian (2019), for instance, describe how coercion and control are a major factor of women's involvement with the criminal justice system. This is reflected in Kerry's case, where her ex-partner was also her co-accused: ‘I was involved with my ex-partner and he was involved with something and he kind of dragged me in with it and I ended up getting a sentence for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and producing cannabis. I’d just had the baby, he was only 16 weeks old obviously when I got sentenced, yeah, I got quite a long sentence as well, for my first time of being in trouble’. Kerry
In Kerry's case, her male partner had been heavily involved in the offences that took place, and it appeared that she was coerced into committing a crime as a result of the abuse she was experiencing: ‘when you’re getting controlled and people scare you into believing what they’re saying, and then it ends you in this situation, to where I was pretty much, if I hadn’t been scared to tell them what happened, then I probably wouldn’t have ended up in prison, but because I was, it ended badly for me…’ Kerry
Lisa was in a similar situation, with relation to her partner and co-accused: ‘The person who I was in a relationship with, who was my co-accused, went bankrupt without anybody knowing. You know, I should have made sure that I hadn’t ended up in this position, I should not have, I should’ve listened to him because he [son] never liked him …this is why I need the palate [due to damaged teeth], hence my bad back, prolapsed discs by being thrown down the stairs’. Lisa
Angela, had experienced severe post-natal depression following the birth of her son and was also experiencing domestic abuse at that time. Angela was talking about events which had occurred around 20 years earlier, and she was now on probation for other offences. She recounted: ‘My husband was very abusive towards me, I was struggling with the relationship with him, basically the son was unplanned, but as soon as we found he was coming along, he got worse, everybody, nobody listened, they just took his side. Even though I went to a social services meeting one day with a footprint across me face!’. Angela
In Angela's case, her son was entrusted to her husband's care when she went to prison, and she did not see him again until he was 16; the fact that he had been abusive towards her was not taken into consideration at that time. At a later date, her son was entrusted to the care of social services, as his father was failing to care for him appropriately after being found by the police stealing food from a shop. Caitlin had experienced difficulties with her mental health for a while before coming into contact with the criminal justice system. Again, this had been tied up with the experience of abusive relationships that impacted on her ability to parent. Caitlin, as is often seen in abusive relationships, was purposefully isolated by her partner: ‘I was like miles away from me mam, like so I couldn’t speak to anyone, I wasn’t allowed a phone, I wasn’t allowed to use the internet, like he didn’t want me anywhere near anyone’. Caitlin
Abusive partners, removing victim's access to support by isolating them from others, help to ensure that they remain trapped in the situation and are dependent on the abuser (Renzetti et al., 2018). This also significantly impacts on victims’ mental health, and for young mothers in particular struggling with a new baby, this adds to the pressure: ‘I was screamed at I had things thrown at us, but when my daughter was born, she was two weeks old and we were arguing and I had her in me arms to breastfeed and he screamed at us, and I was like right that's the final straw I can’t have me daughter being near us when I’m being screamed at, so I told him to leave and he locked all the windows and all the doors and left with the keys, so the police had to come and kick me door through’. Caitlin
The trauma of mother/child separation and loss
One element of prior trauma where there is a paucity of research in relation to women involved in the criminal justice system is that of child removal instigated by social services or, in some cases, the woman herself feeling unable to care for the child. For some women involved in the criminal justice system, there has already been involvement of social services in their lives with the removal of a child or children either to another family member or to the care of social services. This can be a trigger to a deterioration in mental health, substance abuse and consequent offending. Many women in this situation may feel that there is nothing left worth fighting for (Allen et al., 2010; Povey, 2017). In some cases removal may be related to domestic abuse being experienced by the mother as touched on in the previous section, which remains a difficult and at times contentious issue for state agencies to deal with (Broadhurst and Mason, 2020).
Six of the mothers had experienced their children being removed either to social services care or a family member prior to them entering custody (See ‘Tammy’, ‘Angela’ and ‘Caitlin’). For those who were separated from their children at some point prior to going into prison, this was a major traumatic event in their lives, and in some cases a trigger to offending. There was often little support to deal with this. Much previous research has focused on the moment of sentencing as the time when mother/child separation occurs (Baldwin and Epstein, 2017; Minson, 2019). It is sometimes overlooked in criminological literature that many women involved in the criminal justice system have experienced the removal of one or more children prior to entering custody.
Tanya's son was removed from her care suddenly, due to social services being made aware of her new partner's previous criminal history. This led to a long battle in the family courts to get some contact with her son, and to Tanya committing a crime whilst ‘at a really low point’. Tanya seemed unsure what the process of regaining contact with her son was, or how to go about achieving this. In Tanya's case, the removal of her son to his dad triggered many issues for her: ‘She [social worker] came and took me son and put me son with his father to live permanently, like and caused a great big amount of upset, heartache, anxiety, depression, absolutely you name it…’ Tanya
Bianca, in contrast, felt that her own behaviour was the thing that impacted most on her children's lives. She was at a point where she felt her behaviour was the main factor causing problems for them. Bianca had four children, all of which were now in her mother's care due to her drug and alcohol problems. Although she had stopped drinking, she had since become addicted to heroin and was currently being prescribed methadone: ‘I had a drinking problem, a really bad one and it was binge drinking, I used to binge drink and I was always in bother with the police then and ended up going to prison. Me mam had me kids and then I found out I was pregnant with another one in there… but when I got out I had me little one taken away as well to me mam, cos of the drinking. I’ve stopped now, I haven’t drank for 6 years’. Bianca
In Tammy's case, domestic abuse over a number of years led directly to the removal of children from the family, a decision which was taken out of her hands. As Tammy described: ‘They were in foster care. Because of their dad, had them taken off us through violence, through domestic violence’. Tammy
Tammy went on to explain how after this she did not care about anything anymore and as a result she ended up homeless. This illustrates how women in prison have often had their children removed prior to offending and custody, suggesting that this may, for some women be a trigger to offending. This is in contrast to much criminological research which focusses on custody as the point of separation. Tammy's experience highlights the difficult interaction between domestic abuse, removal of children from the family home, substance misuse and deterioration in mental health. As Tammy states: ‘Once you get stuck in that rut of domestic violence and, physically and mentally you don’t know how to get out of it. When I lost the children, I had nothing else to lose, he didn’t frighten us anymore, I started being violent towards him. Well, that's when I turned to drink, I couldn’t wake up in the morning without having a drink of vodka’. Tammy
The issue of removing children from a woman's care due to an abusive partner is a very difficult and contentious one. On the one hand, punishing the mother for failing to protect the children seems counterintuitive, but from a social work perspective there may be limited options when a child is deemed to be at risk. It is evident that for some, particularly vulnerable women, these gendered trauma experiences combine until they are struggling to survive in their everyday lives. This is often the result of structural systems and processes which remove the agency from mothers and also fail to recognise their victimisation.
The ongoing abuse was a factor in Caitlin deciding to give up custody of her daughter, as her mental health had badly deteriorated to the point where she felt unable to cope and thought that her daughter would be better off in the care of grandparents: ‘I had her (daughter) until she was four-month-old and then my mental health completely just went downhill because of her dad, so me and her dad ended…so I signed custody over’. Caitlin
Mothers reported feeling that they had done what was asked of them, but they were still not allowed any contact with their children, so they became increasingly hopeless and despairing. There also appeared to be a lack of the right kind of information and support for women to navigate child contact issues successfully. In Caitlin's case, domestic abuse led to the deterioration of her mental health and parenting difficulties – this then culminated in offending behaviour. These traumatic experiences were then further exacerbated by a period in custody.
The effect of perinatal mental health
Gendered violence and trauma experiences are often additionally related to poor mental health for women, not just in the immediate aftermath but for many years after the abuse has occurred. This gives evidence to Herman's claims that this type of abuse may be more psychologically harmful (Herman-Lewis, 1992a). Erosion of self-esteem and an increase in anxiety and depression and issues with trust can form part of this. Although there is a wealth of research concerning the mental health needs of women in the prison system (Bartlett and Hollins, 2018; Harner and Riley, 2013), less is known about the relationships between woman specific conditions – such as post-natal depression and post-partum psychosis – and how these may be linked to experiences of offending, either directly or indirectly. There is some research regarding mothers who kill their children as a result of post-natal depression (Kauppi et al., 2008; Reece, 1990) but less study of any direct link between post-natal depression and offences committed by mothers more generally.
Post-natal depression is thought to affect about 10–20% of new mothers, but it is still something mothers do not always seek help for, it is possible that additional women spoken to may have had PND that was not diagnosed. It is a factor that is often underreported generally and is not usually assessed in connection with offending, despite the fact that it can be extremely debilitating and life changing (Slomian et al., 2019). The potentially more serious condition, post-partum or puerperal psychosis, affects about 1–2 in 1000 new mothers (Bauer et al., 2014) and can lead to extreme behavioural change, hallucinations and delusions. For women in already difficult situations, it can add to their vulnerability and ability to cope with life and motherhood. Prior research in this area is limited, with most studies coming from the field of health and generally focussing on outcomes for children (Pawlby et al., 2007; Poobalan et al., 2007), rather than links to mothers’ offending.
Three of the women interviewed talked directly about their experiences of post-natal depression and how it impacted on them. In Angela's case severe post-natal depression or post-partum psychosis directly led to the offence, which then changed the course of her life and that of her son from that point onwards: ‘My son was about a year old at the time, and I had quite severe post-natal depression to the extent I was actually hearing voices in my head telling me to do things…It wasn’t picked up by professionals at all at that point, it was picked up once I went to jail’. Angela
Angela's child was about a year old when she set fire to her house whilst hearing voices due to post-natal depression. Angela went on to detail the failure by the police to understand what she was experiencing at the time of her offence: ‘I can’t even remember what happened that night. That's all, I wish I could! I was held in police custody for 3 days before I eventually went to court, over the weekend. They had the cell door open and police officers sitting outside writing down what I was saying. Basically, I think the police should have got me help there and then - they could see that something wasn’t right, but they took me straight to the courts.’
For Kerry it was once in custody that her mental health deteriorated further, leading to post-natal depression exacerbated by concerns about her children who were left on the outside. Kerry's children were close to being taken into care when she was in prison, as her mother was struggling to look after them and meet their needs. Again, there is a clear trajectory between prior trauma, in this case coercion and abuse, and then additional trauma to the family unit as a result. In Kerry's case this was also tied in with experiences of post-natal depression in custody. Her case illustrates the interaction between domestic abuse, separation from children and difficulties with post-natal mental health.
For Tanya, who received a 10-month sentence for taking drugs into prison, her post-natal depression led to a deterioration in her mental health and the breakdown of her relationship: ‘Because I had post-natal depression, the first three months, we kind of split up and that's what caused the breakdown and then he moved on with another partner so we kind of agreed terms with the baby at that time’. Tanya
Tanya's PND had occurred prior to offending and was touched on quite briefly in her interview. This perhaps indicates that both women themselves, and professionals sometimes underestimate the impact post-natal depression can have on wider aspects of women's lives. In both of these cases either the post-natal depression was undiagnosed, or help was not put in place quickly enough to stop it impacting other areas of these women's lives.
For one of the women, the loss of a child was the trigger for her life changing course. Cheryl described the huge impact that losing her first baby at birth had on her life: ‘I went off the rails when I lost my daughter, I stayed in for like two year and I just got in with the wrong crowd when I started like associating with people again, like started taking ecstasy and speed and was drinking quite a lot. Like I was working, I stopped and started shoplifting and like I just chose a totally different lifestyle…’ Cheryl
Although Cheryl did not talk about PND directly, she described many experiences of poor perinatal mental health which led to other problems. It was evident during speaking that these past events were still very raw in Cheryl's life, continuing to affect her everyday life and emotional wellbeing: ‘I’d never been in trouble before in me life, ever, like, always worked, I was married and everything, just, one of them things really, it was just a coping mechanism really, like something, like I felt as though I needed punishing…’ Cheryl
The gendered trauma trajectories outlined here show the different ways in which women may have specific experiences which relate to their criminalisation and offending behaviour. In many cases experiences of domestic abuse interact with parenting and mental health to produce cumulative trauma experiences. Not all women in these situations will become involved in the criminal justice system, but as can be seen from the narratives depicted, the chances are increased, particularly when combined with other forms of disadvantage and marginalisation.
Conclusion
The factors identified here and illustrated by the mothers’ narratives, relating to prior trauma and the themes of domestic abuse, perinatal mental health, and child removal show the experiences often faced by criminalised mothers. These trajectories illustrate factors highlighted by theories around trauma and gendered pathways into offending. Previous work on pathways for women has suggested that victimisation histories are important factors for women involved in offending (Daly, 1992; DeHart et al., 2014; Greene et al., 2000), as highlighted here. What is less clear are the specific gendered experiences that women and especially, mothers, may endure. Of the 19 mothers spoken to in this study, ten outlined gendered trauma experiences with six disclosing experiences of domestic abuse, four experiencing post-natal mental health issues and eight having lost care of a child. The experiences presented are more likely to impact on women and arguably with PND only impact on women. All but four of the women additionally discussed issues around mental health more generally that were impacting their daily lives and can be seen as related to the events they endured, resulting in cumulative trauma. The evidence presented therefore adds further weight to the argument that women in contact with the criminal justice system need a gender-specific approach due to their specific gendered experiences.
These prior experiences interact with factors within women's current lives and environments, increasing marginalisation. Prior life experiences can leave women vulnerable to further victimisation and involvement in risky situations, as outlined by the pathways theory (DeHart, 2008). The pathways theory sets out a number of possible ‘pathways’ into crime for women including homelessness, experiences of abuse, substance misuse and financial issues. In this study, there were many instances where gendered trauma experiences then led to further harm such as removal of children as a result of domestic abuse and child removal leading to deterioration in mental health. Many women will try to cope with the emotions arising from their experiences by using drugs and alcohol, as described by Tammy, which can lead to offending and poor mental health. The trauma experiences show in detail the interaction between domestic abuse, removal of children and how this can exacerbate or, in many cases as detailed, lead to engagement in offending behaviour. Arguably this is caused by a combination of personal, family and wider state/societal factors interacting. For Angela and Cheryl, their experiences of mental health issues after childbirth led directly or indirectly to their offending. Likewise, for Kerry, her involvement with an abusive partner dragged her into offending, and for Tammy and Caitlin the deterioration in stability once their children were no longer living with them, in addition to their experiences of abuse, led them down a pathway of offending. In many cases the cycle of experiences of abuse, poor mental health and substance misuse is visible. It is evident that prior trauma experiences, often related to gender, are of primary importance with regards to women's mental health and subsequent offending. The interaction between these elements would benefit from further investigation in addition to the identification of factors which may be present prior to these gendered trauma experiences.
Approaching trauma theory from a sociological viewpoint aids in identifying the wider societal and systemic causes of gendered traumas by examining the effects of trauma on individuals, communities and society. As outlined by Comack (2018), there is often still a tendency to focus on the decisions and actions of individual women as opposed to seeking to understand the structural and systemic issues at play. This study has shown how gendered trauma trajectories relating to wider societal and social influences may affect women in contact with the criminal justice system. Women's pathways into the criminal justice system are often therefore shaped by experiences that include both victimisation and offending. Women who have shown great resilience to survive in abusive relationships and after removal of children may ultimately become involved in offending and receive punishments which add further trauma.
The crossover between offending and victimisation needs further examination in order to identify points of intervention and support. A greater emphasis on preventative work with women who have children removed from their care and/or those experiencing domestic abuse is imperative in avoiding future offending and custodial sentences for mothers. The move towards trauma-informed care is also likely to be beneficial (Petrillo, 2021), enabling mothers in particular to begin to understand and unravel their trauma histories in a supportive environment. However, services need to be aware of the tensions that arise between the functions of the criminal justice system on the one hand and the care and rehabilitation of those who have experienced trauma on the other. The trajectories presented also evidence the need for holistic or ‘one-stop-shop’ style women's centres where support can be provided for a variety of needs under one roof (Plechowitz, 2015), as opposed to a requirement to access a number of different services. A greater understanding of the cumulative nature of trauma and interaction with mental health is also vital to support mothers at key points in their lives.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
