Victimization, adversity and survival in the lives of women offenders: implications for social policy and correctional practice

• Published in: Canadian woman studies 2006-12, Vol.25 (1-2), p.133
• Main Author: Tyagi, Smita Vir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Correctional institutions; Crimes against; Criminals; Drama; Interpretation and construction; Politics; Problem solving; Services; Sex crimes; Social aspects; Social policy; Studies; Therapy; Victims of crime; Violence; Women; Women criminals
• ISSN: 0713-3235

That women offenders experience such high degrees of abuse and trauma, which often form pathways into offending, should not be assumed to translate into women's lack of agency. One should not infer that women offenders are simply the sum total of their victimization, addictions and traumatic life experiences, or that they are but unwitting "actors" on a stage not of their making and participants in actions over which they lack volition. This type of reductionistic thinking does disservice to women's resilience, capacity for survival, and choices in the face of adversity. It also aggregates and simplifies individual women's responses to life forces and the contexts that govern them. However, it does indicate that abuse and trauma play a significant role in women's offending. It suggests that in complex, inter-connected ways these experiences render women vulnerable to conditions under which offending continues to occur. Furthermore, it underscores the view that interventions and assistance for women offenders need to be considered within the broader context of Canadian social and economic policy, which has seen not only increasing support for putting people in prison, but a continued erosion of support for its most disenfranchised citizens, a group to which women offenders belong. It leads us to raise questions not only about law and imprisonment but also the role of the State in responding to its citizens, particularly those that have not been served by society's majority interests. Kadileen Kendall succinctly observes that if we don't look at systemic factors in women's criminal offending, individual women become the sole objects of inquiry, rather than the social, political, and economic structures which create conditions that modify and govern the behaviour of individuals as well as entire groups. Some issues in the latter category in relation to women offenders are discussed below. In the past few years, as a result of increased advocacy for gender-responsive programming, there have been some concerted efforts to implement such programs in the correctional system. The Program Strategy for federally sentenced women includes programs such as the "Woman Offenders Substance Abuse Program" (WOSAP), "Spirit of the Warrior" (which addresses specific needs of Aboriginal women), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Program and Survivors of Abuse and Trauma, and Community Integration and Parenting Skills. According to Catherine Maunsell of the Ontario Ministry of Commu