| IN HER OWN WORDS Women Offenders' Views on Crime and Victimization Criminals on Crime An Anthology First Edition |
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| Leanne Fiftal Alarid (Editor), University of Missouri
at Kansas City Paul Cromwell (Editor), Wichita State University |
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| ISBN: 1-933220-03-1 | |
| softbound, 245 pages, ©2006 | |
| Examination Copy Purchase Book | |
| PDF of Chapter 1
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"What makes this anthology so unique and interesting is its
exclusive use of research using feminist methodology, including in-depth
and life-history interviews. In addition, the authors select essays that
highlight the diversity of experiences of female offenders, particularly
related to race and class." --Heather Melton, University of Utah
Roxbury is pleased to announce publication of IN HER OWN WORDS: Women Offenders' Views on Crime and Victimization (An Anthology), edited by Leanne Fiftal Alarid and Paul Cromwell. This unique volume offers first-hand accounts of women's experience with crime and victimization and provides a rare opportunity for students to view the world from the perspective of the female offender. The text is designed to offer a surrogate experience--an inside view on how female law-breaking behavior overlaps with victimization in some cases, and how law breaking is a rational choice in others. The authors of each article befriend, observe, and interview women who are involved in lawbreaking behaviors and may also themselves be victimized. Topics include sex work, drugs, violent crime, property crime, desistance from crime, and women as victims of crime. Students will encounter women who have engaged in prostitution, murder, robbery, drug dealing and gang activities--all of whom discuss their motives, perceptions, decision-making strategies, and rationalizations for crime. The data from these ethnographic studies provide abundant description and detail about the personal experiences and perspectives of offenders so that readers understand the commonalities shared by both criminalized and victimized women. In every case, however, the story is told from the perspective, and in the words of, the offender. IN HER OWN WORDS takes a "pathways to crime" approach and assumes that present cultural values define what is considered illegal, immoral, or in need of government intervention. The book places the interviews in a theoretical and social scientific context so that the reader can better understand how much of female offending behavior is linked to prior victimization and how much is rational choice. The law tends to criminalize individuals who face victimization from domestic abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, or are marginalized in some way through poverty or discrimination. As such, a criminalized woman may share many commonalities of women who are victimized, such as a feeling of powerlessness or learned helplessness, and involvement in oppressive relationships. Features of the book:
TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION I: WOMEN'S PATHWAYS TO CRIME: LINKING VICTIMIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION 1. From Victims to Survivors to Offenders: Women's Routes of Entry and Immersion Into Street Crime Mary E. Gilfus Gilfus constructs a framework for understanding women's progression from victim to offender through a variety of pathways, including childhood abuse, neglect, addiction, and homelessness. 2. Black Women's Pathways to Involvement in Illicit Drug Distribution and Sales Lisa Maher, Eloise Dunlap, and Bruce D. Johnson Maher, Dunlap, and Johnson consider how exposure to various factors limit economic options available to women in certain socioeconomic areas, creating a pathway to drug use. 3. Coping, Resisting, and Surviving: Connecting Women's Law Violations to Their History of Abuse Elizabeth Comack Comack shows how physical and sexual abuses play a role in women ending up in prison. 4. Naming Oneself Criminal: Gender Differences in Offenders' Identity Negotiation Brenda Geiger and Michael Fischer The authors compare how women and men offenders are able to rationalize a favorable identity of themselves and justify criminal behavior. SECTION II: THE NEXUS BETWEEN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR AND FAMILY 5. 'I'm Calling My Mom': The Meaning of Family and Kinship Among Latina Homegirls Geoffrey P. Hunt, Kathleen MacKenzie, and Karen A. Joe-Laidler Hunt, MacKenzie, and Joe-Laidler illustrate the complexities of family ties with adolescent Latina gang members. 6. The Lives and Times of Asian-Pacific American Women Methamphetamine Users Karen A. Joe-Laidler In the first ethnographic account of Asian-Pacific American women drug users, Laidler explores the onset and patterns of drug use and coping strategies in relation to the competing cultural and familial networks. 7. The Impact of Mothering on Criminal Offending Kathleen J. Ferraro and Angela M. Moe Ferraro and Moe describe how mothering represents the burdens of an unequal division of labor and law-breaking opportunities as a response to marginalization and hopelessness. 8. Women Who Have Killed Their Children Susan M. Crimmins, Sandra C. Langley, Henry H. Brownstein, and Barry J. Spunt Crimmins, Langley, Brownstein, and Spunt provide a deeper understanding of why women kill their own children. SECTION III: CRIME PARTNERSHIPS, NETWORKS, AND GANGS 9. Do Women Play a Primary or a Secondary Role in Felony Offenses? A Comparison by Race/Ethnicity Leanne Fiftal Alarid, James W. Marquart, Velmer S. Burton Jr., Francis T. Cullen, and Steven J. Cuvelier Alarid, Marquart, Burton, Cullen, and Cuvelier discuss the extent to which women commit crimes alone or with other people, and the roles women played in mixed gender groups. 10. A Woman's Place Is in the Home: Females and Residential Burglary Scott H. Decker, Richard Wright, Allison Redfern, and Dietrich Smith Decker and colleagues analyze commonalities and differences between female and male burglars and their specialization in crime, target selection, and offending styles. 11. Comparing Female Gangs of Various Ethnicities: Young Women of African-American, El Salvadoran, and Mexican Descent David C. Brotherton Brotherton uses the focal concerns developed by Walter Miller to argue that female gang members react to their marginalization by joining gangs and dealing drugs. 12. Young Women and Gang Violence: Gender, Street Offending, and Violent Victimization in Gangs Scott H. Decker and Jody Miller Decker and Miller provide firsthand accounts from female gang members to conclude that gender stratification explains both violent offending and victimization risk in gangs. SECTION IV: ECONOMIC MARGINALITY AND SURVIVAL CRIMES 13. One Woman's Voice: My Mother Was a Whore Nikki Levine Levine describes her life growing up in poverty with drug-addicted parents who were just trying to survive the best way they knew how. 14. Violent Victimization of Street Sex Workers Steven P. Kurtz, Hilary L. Surratt, James A. Inciardi, and Marion C. Kiley Kurtz, Surratt, Inciardi, and Kiley discuss the violent victimization experiences that sex workers experience from their "dates" or "johns." 15. The Entanglement of Agency, Violence, and Law in the Lives of Women in Prostitution Lisa E. Sanchez Sanchez shares perspectives from sex workers as well as her own perspectives about views that police officers have about prostitution. 16. Homelessness and Temporary Living Arrangements in the Inner-City Crack Culture Lisa Maher, Eloise Dunlap, Bruce D. Johnson, and Ansley Hamid Maher, Dunlap, Johnson, and Hamid provide details on how impoverished female crack users lack a permanent and sufficient place to sleep and store their belongings and therefore must go through tremendous efforts to find a place to stay. SECTION V: WOMEN'S CRIME AS RATIONAL CHOICE 17. One Woman's Voice: Stealing in College Dorothy Allison Allison describes her motivations as a thief while she attends college during her undergraduate years. 18. Women, Work, and Crime Deborah R. Baskin and Ira Sommers Baskin and Sommers explore how women involved in assault, homicide, and robbery make a living and follow their involvement in legal and illegal work. 19. Property Crime as It Relates to Women Drug Dealers Barbara Denton and Pat O'Malley Denton and O'Malley analyze involvement in property crimes as a way to finance participation in drug dealing. 20. Up It Up: Gender and the Accomplishment of Street Robbery Jody Miller Miller interviews 14 active women offenders to determine motivations for robbery. 21. Women Who Kill in Drug Market Situations Henry H. Brownstein, Barry J. Spunt, Susan M. Crimmins, and Sandra C. Langley Brownstein, Spunt, Crimmins, and Langley conclude that a small group of women, representing less than 9 percent of all females involved in homicide, kill to protect or enhance their own economic interests. 22. Pathways Out of Crime: Crime Desistance by Female Street Offenders Ira Sommers, Deborah R. Baskin, and Jeffrey Fagan Sommers, Baskin, and Fagan review the crime desistance process and decision to "get out of the life." |
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