Gendered pathways to desistance: the experiences of women pre-, during and post-incarceration in Victoria

Explanations of and reactions to crime, both in their theoretical and policy applications, largely and often uncritically adopt the dominant androcentric discourse while failing to pay attention to the experiences of women who commit offences. The majority of research that has been conducted on women ex-prisoners tends to focus on their post-release experiences. Such a focus may seem rather obvious, but fails to take into account the lived experiences of the women before and during their incarceration, experiences that are likely to have a significant impact on the women’s potential and ability to desist post-release. Such a narrow focus has serious implications for both theory and practice, in that many post-release support programs and policy frameworks, based on narrow and androcentric theory, fail to provide adequate and appropriate support for women. Hence it is important to direct the light onto women’s individual experiences, through well-informed, qualitative research, and their pathways into and out of the prison system as a complete journey, instead of discrete and siloed events. This research explores the reflective narratives of eight women and their experiences pre-, during and post-incarceration in Victoria, Australia. Semi-structured interviews with the women, as well as with support workers, explored the social, economic and familial issues that encircled the women’s lives, from childhood to post-release. These experiences represent an alternative standpoint to that which is currently available in the desistance literature, establishing that women’s unique experiences are of importance when conceptualising desistance pathways in both theory and practice. In particular, this research examines the ways in which desistance is engaged with and experienced by women who occupy liminal spaces post-release, characterised by social exclusion, poverty, drug use, mental illness, victimisation, homelessness and unemployment. The journey from prison back to these spaces of exclusion is captured in this thesis by the term ‘reintegration into exclusion’. This work positions women’s voices at the forefront of the desistance discussion to consider whether viable pathways to desistance are accessible for women returning to the community post-release, and, importantly, whether these pathways are prioritised by women themselves, above the pursuit of a ‘better life’ – a life that may still involve offending.