Despite the documented rise in the population of incarcerated women over recent decades, female offenders only represent about 5% of the total global incarcerated population. South Africa is no different – female offenders total less than 3% of the country’s incarcerated population, a populace that was previously counted as one of the ten largest correctional systems in the world. This small representation of women in the correctional system leads to interpretations of their pathways to offending and experiences of incarceration to be the same as those of male offenders, delegitimising any role that gender may play in offending behaviour. By utilising a feminist pathways research approach, the narratives of 17 women incarcerated in the Johannesburg Female Correctional Centre are contextualised in this study, to reveal conduits to women’s incarceration that primarily involve victimisation and socially constructed gendered vulnerabilities that are interconnected with poverty and oppression. As seen through excerpts of their life history interviews, this confluence of factors, coupled with pathways of narrowing options, contribute to female offending. Ultimately the research allows for a holistic understanding of the unique choices and challenges incarcerated women in South Africa face, and the role agency and patriarchy has played in the pathways taken.
AckermannM. (2015).
Women in detention in Africa: A review of the literature. Agenda,
29(4), 80–91.
2.
AndersonM. L. (2008).
Multiple inference and gender differences in the effects of early intervention: A re-evaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects. Journal of the American Statistical Association,
103(484), 1481–1495. https://doi.org/10.1198/016214508000000841
3.
BoonzaierF. (2008). “
If the man says you must sit, then you must sit”: The relational construction of woman abuse: Gender, subjectivity and violence. Feminism & Psychology,
18(2), 183–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353507088266
BoutronC.ConstantC. (2013).
Gendering transnational criminality: The case of women’s imprisonment in Peru. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society,
39(11), 177–195. https://doi.org/10.1086/670827
6.
BowerC. (2014).
The plight of women and children: Advancing South Africa’s least privileged. The ANNALS of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Science,
652(1), 106–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213512086
7.
BrunerJ. (1991).
The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry,
18(1), 1–21.
8.
CampbellC.MannellJ. (2015).
Conceptualising the agency of highly marginalised women: Intimate partner violence in extreme settings. Global Public Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice,
11(2), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2015.1109694
9.
CaputoG. A.KingA. (2015).
Shoplifting by male and female drug users: Gender, agency, and work. Criminal Justice Review,
40(1), 47–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016814568012
10.
Chesney-LindM. (2006).
Patriarchy, crime, and justice: Feminist criminology in an era of backlash. Feminist Criminology,
1(1), 6–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085105282893
11.
DalyK. (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, 11–52.
12.
DeHartD. D. (2008).
Pathways to prison: Impact of victimization in the lives of incarcerated women. Violence Against Women,
14(12), 1362–1381.
13.
Department of Correctional Services. (2019). Annual report for the 2018/2019 financial year.
South African Department of Correctional Services.
14.
Department of Women. (2015). Report on the status of women in the South African economy.
South African Department of Women.
15.
EttorreE. (2004).
Revisioning women and drug use: Gender sensitivity, embodiment and reducing harm. International Journal of Drug Policy,
15(5), 327–335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2004.06.009
16.
ErezE.BerkoA. (2010).
Pathways of Arab/Palestinian women in Israel to crime and imprisonment: An intersectional approach. Feminist Criminology,
5(2) 156–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085110367742
GehringK. S. (2016).
A direct test of pathways theory. Feminist Criminology,
13(2), 1–23.
19.
GuetaK.ChenG. (2016). “I wanted to rebel, but there they hit me even harder”: Discourse analysis of Israeli women offenders’ accounts of their pathways to substance abuse and crime. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 60(7), 787–807. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624x15595421
20.
GunnisonE.McCartanL. M. (2010).
Persistent versus late onset among female offenders: A test of state dependent and population heterogeneity interpretations. Western Criminology Review,
11(3), 45–62.
21.
HesselinkA.DastileP. (2015).
A criminological assessment on South African women who murdered their intimate male partners. Journal of Psychology in Africa,
25(4), 335–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1078091
22.
LiddellM.MartinovicM. (2013).
Women’s offending: Trends, issues and theoretical explanations. International Journal of Social Inquiry,
6(1), 127–142.
LuytW. F. M. (2008).
Imprisoned mothers in South African prisons with children outside of the institution. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice,
16, 299–323. https://doi.org/10.1163/157181708x333364
25.
LuytW. F. M.du PreezN. (2010).
A case study of female incarceration in South Africa. Acta Criminologica,
23(3), 88–114.
26.
MahtaniS. (2013).
Women and the criminalization of poverty: Perspectives from Sierra Leone. Journal of Women in Culture and Society,
39(1), 243–264. https://doi.org/10.1086/670919
27.
MatosR. (2008).
Trajectories and identities of foreign national women: Rethinking prison through the lens of gender and citizenship. Criminology & Criminal Justice,
16(3), 350–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895815603776
28.
Modie-MorokaT. (2003).
Vulnerability across a life course: An empirical study: Women and criminality in Botswana prisons. Journal of Social Development in Africa,
18(1), 145–179. https://doi.org/10.4314/jsda.v18i1.23823
29.
NuytiensA.ChristiaensJ. (2015).
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
30.
ParryB. R. (2018). The motherhood penalty: Exploring mothering experiences as a pathway to crime for women incarcerated in the Johannesburg Female Correctional Centre. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from University of South Africa Institutional Repository at http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/25469
31.
PollackS. (2007).
“I’m just not good in relationships”: Victimisation discourses and the gendered regulation of criminalised women. Feminist Criminology,
2(2), 158–174. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085106297521
SewellJrW. H. (1992).
A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology,
98(1), 1–29.
35.
ShechoryM.PerryG.AddadM. (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.
36.
Statistics South Africa. (2015). Labour market dynamics in South Africa, 2015.
Author.
WattanapornK. A.HoltfreterK. (2014).
The impact of feminist pathways research on gender-responsive policy and practice. Feminist Criminology,
9(3), 191–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085113519491
WorrallA. (1999). Troubled or troublesome? Justice for girls and young women. In GoldsonB. (Ed.), Youth justice: Contemporary policy and practice (1st ed., pp. 28–50).
Ashgate. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429432576-2
YinglingJ. (2016). Gendered pathways to crime. In HuebnerB. M.BynumT. S. (Eds.), The handbook of measurement issues in criminology and criminal justice (1st ed., pp. 181–199).
John Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118868799.ch9
