Women in Crime

5 different levels

an ecological model of victimization, offending, and working in the CLS; contributors to support, harm, justice, injustice, and helping

individual level

inner level; degree of physical and mental health, attitudes, disposition

family level

degree of support, love, availability, mental health

community/neighborhood level

degree of safety, ties to others living nearby, sense of community

institutional level

degree of access to, quality of, and fairness in schools, healthcare, housing opportunities, police, courts, and jails/prisons

structural level

outer level; degree of sexism, racism, poverty, heterosexism, ableism, anti-immigrant, etc

improves theoretical approaches

explicitly theorizes gender- requires social justice commitment, increasing global scope, and commitment to intersectionality; expanding methodology beyond positivism to key feminist methods; understanding the unique position of women working in the criminal legal systems of policing and prisons/jails; focuses on masculinity and the gender gap in serious crimes; critically assess the corporate media and the demonization of girls and women of color; recognizing importance of girls’ and womens’ studies

transformative critical feminist criminology

advocating for feminist research

community-coordinated responses (CCRs)

looking at neighborhood/community levels (mental health, parole, education system, halfway houses, etc); ideally includes such informal community members as parents, neighbors, teachers, and friends, members of official agencies in CLS, health providers, staff in rape crisis centers, survivors, and former perpetrators; necessary coordination largely lacking between the health care providers collecting SAK evidence, laboratories analyzing it, the police using it to arrest, and prosecutor decisions

restorative justice (RJ) models

a way to deal with justice in CLS using victim and offender meeting face to face not in a courtroom to restore the offenders place back into society; where there is victim input, victims and offenders meet face-to-face in a community instead of a conventional court setting, and some form of restitution and reconciliation between victim and offender; increases the likelihood for offenders to recognize and help restore victims’/survivors’ losses, through the opportunity of offenders and survivors to dialogue and communicate more directly and in a context of community support; in order to work, survivor must agree and offender must admit guilt

where change can be made

ecological model stresses the need for making changes in the micro and macro levels, and ways that individuals are impacted by a wide range of forces; RJ, CCRs, and TIC were offered as some of the best means of providing real changes that help survivors, offenders, CLS workers, and communities and agencies; have been some important advances in terms of societal changes, legal reforms, and employment practices and policies since the 70s; however, GBA, women and girls offenders, and women working as professionals in the CLS continue to face damaging stereotypes and discrimination