NCJ Number
216105
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 50 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2006 Pages: 582-594
Date Published
October 2006
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This qualitative study examined the trajectories of resistance to abuse and domination in a small sample of female offenders in Israel who broke their silence to tell their life story.
Abstract
Analysis of narratives, informal conversations, and more focused, in-depth interviews with these female offenders allows the deconstruction of the stereotype of the passive and helpless female offender. The research reconstructs female offending as a hidden script of resistance against intolerable socioeconomic deprivation and extreme forms of abuse. Women’s illegal and deviant behaviors emerged as strategies they opted for to escape and/or struggle against abuse and redress injustice. It is recommended to abandon the language of victimization and helplessness and to reconstruct their biographies as agents who resist and challenge abuse and injustice. Poor, uneducated, and illiterate Mizrahi women constitute the majority of the 220 female offenders incarcerated in the only female prison in Israel, Neve Tirza. Their engagement in crime, prostitution, and drugs has often been the result of childhood victimization and traumas. This study was based on the life stories of eight Mizrahi female ex-offenders. The study sought to deconstruct the myth of the passive female victim propelled into crime without intention or purpose as it uncovered in these women’s life trajectories the various points at which they had struggled against intolerable socioeconomic deprivation and abuse. References