Sexual Abuse Dynamics across the Lives of Women in Jail

• In Event: Studying The Lives of Incarcerated Women

Abstract

Within the current political climate, justice for crime victims is heralded as the priority of the judicial process. Complicating this conceptualization are the disproportionate rates of victimization for incarcerated women. When the identity as a victim co-occurs with the social rejection of the criminal, a conflicting cultural paradigm emerges. It is this identity negotiation that this study seeks to explore by examining a type of victimization common to incarcerated women: sexual abuse. Drawing on life-history calendar (LHC) and narrative data from 115 jailed in multiple U.S. states, 75% of the women reported sexual abuse victimizations. LHC interviews and narrative analysis reveal the complexity of the women’s relationships between their identities as victims and criminals, as well as the impact of the social reaction to sexual traumas. The findings have important implications for both theory (pathways) and policy, including the constructed binary between “victim” and “offender” and the probable efficacy of gender-responsive, trauma-informed programming both before and during incarceration.

Authors

• Elizabeth Whalley, University of Colorado

• Joanne Belknap, President, American Society of Criminology / University of Colorado

• Dana DeHart, University of South Carolina

• Shannon Lynch, Idaho State University