Narrative criminology and ‘decisions in context’: Women’s violent victimization and substance use over the life course

• In Event: Decisions in Context: Using Life Course and Narrative Analysis to Analyze Offender and Officer Actions

Abstract

The relationship between women’s violent victimization and substance use has been repeatedly supported in the literature through a variety of methodologies. Rarely, however, are women given the opportunity to explain their own understandings of this relationship and how it has unfolded over the course of their lives. Women’s perspectives on the relationship between their victimization experiences and substance use has important implications for understanding desistance from substance use. Using in-depth life story interviews with a sample of 30 substance-using women in the community, this analysis employs the techniques of narrative criminology to explore how women make sense of their violent victimization and substance use histories. The narratives explore the nature, timing and impact of women’s victimization, their pathways into and out of substance use, and the relationship between victimization, mental health and substance use. The findings offer insight into women’s sense-making of their experiences and how this sense-making supports or undermines primary desistance efforts.

Authors

• Rebecca J. Stone, University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Kellie Wallace, University of Massachusetts Lowell