Being a ‘good woman’: Stigma, relationships and desistance

Abstract

This article critiques the focus on responsibilisation of criminalised women within desistance research, policy and practice, through the neglect of the structural conditions surrounding women’s criminalisation and victimisation. The concept of the ‘good woman’ within these areas is grounded in patriarchal and neoliberal discourse. Drawing upon women’s narratives, we show this results in feelings of shame and stigmatisation, negatively affecting relational networks and leading to a denial of victimhood. Research from two complementing studies drawn together here suggest that positive relationships which challenge feelings of shame and stigmatisation are essential to women’s desistance both from crime and harm, and are therefore fundamental considerations for practice.

Resettling Muslim women with convictions

“…The first of these findings centres around the elevated importance of shame in participants' experiences of desisting from crime. While shame is often recognised as particularly important to women's desistance (Rutter and Barr, 2021;Gålnander, 2020), the Muslim women who worked with us reported particularly acute encounters of shame. This had implications on how they coped emotionally with their situations, what they did with their days and who they interacted with.…”

Working Together? Gendered Barriers to Employment and Desistance From Harm Amongst Criminalised English Women

“…This stigma is classed, gendered and racialized. Criminal justice rhetoric of responsibilization (Hart, 2017) which is also present in uncritical examinations of desistance (Gålnander, 2020) can encourage women to present as 'good women', constructions that revolve around often cis-heteronormative ideas around motherhood and marriage (Rutter and Barr, 2021). Compounding this, full-time employment is valorized in neoliberal society.…”

Negotiating bereavement and loss: Influencing persistence and desistance from crime

“…These individual and structural infleunces are drawn together through an interactionist perspective of desistance which identifies the interplay between an individual and their wider social and structural circumstances (Carlsson, 2016). It is therefore fundamental desistance is understood within relational, cultural and structural contexts (Weaver, 2019), and for women there is also a recognition of harm, vulnerability and victimisation (Rutter and Barr, 2021).…”