Social Context and Women’s Desistance from Crime

• In Event: Women and Desistance from Crime

Abstract

Criminal behavior is decisively marked in terms of gender. This is true not only because women are marginally implicated in this activity in comparison to men, but also because when they actually have an involvement, it has distinctive features (Giordano et al. 2002; Massoglia et al., 2007).
As with other criminological discussions, the factors considered as key for desistance have mainly been studied in male populations, ignoring the specificities that may exist when it comes to women offenders (Uggen and Kruttschnitt, 1998; Giordano et al. 2002; Leverentz, 2006). Even if we assumed that the factors involved in desisting are the same for men and women, it could be that the mechanisms through which they operate, the life stage when they do, or the significance assigned to them, were different (Giordano et al, 2002).
This paper analyzes the way in which different events highlighted by criminological literature as “turning points”, affect the criminal pathways of women in an underdeveloped country as Uruguay. Results show the relevance of taking into account the life course perspective, and to analyze the various social events in the light of the constraints imposed by the social location of individuals (age, gender and class, included).

Author

• Ana Vigna, Universidad de la República