Caretaking in the Aftermath of Crime: Women’s Experiences as Offenders’ Families in Contemporary Japan

• In Event: Crtical Perspectives on Violence and Gender

Abstract

This research explores the gendered experiences of family members of offenders in Japan. Historically, women in the world of crime and justice have been studied from narrow perspectives of victims, perpetrators, or practitioners. The family members of offenders, especially mothers, wives, and sisters, are scantly represented in the literature, although their lives are significantly altered when their kin commit a crime. By exploring the realities of 30 family members of offenders in Japan, this research tries to broaden the analytical scope of looking at the links between gender, crime, and justice. I conducted twenty-month long ethnography with 30 family members of offenders in three cities in Japan. Findings include that not only do women go though fundamentally life-altering experiences due to their proximity to the offender, but also take on various offender support activities that resemble domestic work, as a result of their subordinate status within the family, criminal justice system, and society. Household duties such as grocery shopping and taking out the trash made the women extremely aware of the stigma of being related to an offender. Those who were showing signs of resiliency, however, emphasized the importance of both peer-run and non-peer-run programs for emotional and legal support.

Author

• Mari Kita, University of Hawaii at Manoa