Good Intentions: Women’s Narratives of Post-Release Anticipatory Desistance in the Context of Historical and Contemporary Disadvantage and Trauma

Abstract

Desistance theorizing has concentrated on the male experience resulting in relatively less knowledge about how criminalized women negotiate nonoffending, particularly from a qualitative perspective. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with eight formerly incarcerated women in Victoria, Australia, this research explores the anticipation of desistance in the context of experiences preceding and following incarceration. The findings highlight how individual-level intentions to cease offending can be eclipsed by historical and ongoing disadvantage and trauma. In emphasizing the gendered socio-structural barriers affecting women’s desistance efforts, this article contributes to a small, yet important, emerging discourse—a form of critical feminist desistance.