NCJ Number
181982
Date Published
1999
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This analysis of female criminality in Puerto Rico notes the interweaving of other social and cultural problems, such as poverty, prostitution, and social alienation, with drug addiction and trafficking.
Abstract
In November 1990, 30 women awaiting trial without bail were interviewed to determine the socioeconomic conditions of their lives as well as the nature and motivations for their criminal offenses. The findings from the interviews confirm the thesis that women commit crimes out of economic need. A total of 83.3 percent of the women were unemployed at the time they committed their crime. The type of crime committed confirms the thesis that women's social alienation and participation in illegal drug trafficking led to their criminal lifestyle. All of the crimes charged had some degree of affiliation with drug use or drug trafficking. Although none of the women had been charged with prostitution, a substantial number admitted involvement in prostitution at some time. The women identified the following factors as being related to their crimes: drug addiction, selling drugs for economic subsistence, partner being drug addicted, deteriorated family relationships, poor relationship with children, lack of effective networks, poverty, and being a single mother. Background experiences often include sexual abuse as a child, homelessness, school dropout, absent father, isolation from mother, and parental divorce. Recommendations for the international community focus on ways to change the socioeconomic conditions that underlie female criminal behavior. 1 figure and 9 references