A qualitative investigation into the impact of domestic abuse on women’s desistance

Introduction

There has been a recent acknowledgement within both criminology and criminal justice practice about the link between women’s experiences of domestic violence and their criminalisation (Österman, 2018; Prison Reform Trust, 2017; Roberts, 2015). To a lesser extent, there does appear to be some recognition by the state of the prevalence of domestic violence in the lives of women entering the criminal justice system (CJS) (MoJ, 2018). What has been much less examined however, in academic literature, policy, and practice, is how criminalised women’s qualitative experiences, both historical and current, of domestic abuse affect their desistance. This article will first consider current policy developments and academic debates around gendered violence before moving on to consider the development and prevalence of desistance theory within criminological discourse, and in particular the failure to recognise gendered harms faced by desisting women within this body of work. Following this, the methodology of the current article will be explained. Findings will focus on narratives of the prevalence and interconnectedness of ‘offending’, punishment, gendered violence and desistance in the lives of criminalised women, the presence of agency and resistance within criminal acts, the invisible nature of gendered violence within desistance narratives, and the consequences of this for theory and practice.

Domestic abuse

The Female Offenders Strategy (MoJ, 2018) recognises that the majority of women coming into contact with the CJS have experienced abuse and that these women have not been supported as victims while travelling through the CJS. This recognition has myriad empirical support. For example, a recent report by Glorney et al. (2019) highlighted that 64% of 173 women prisoners answering questions about blows to the head at HMP Drake Hall gave answers consistent with a brain injury, ‘with 89% of reported injuries being traumatic, most commonly sustained through domestic violence, and of mild and moderate severity’ (Glorney et al., 2019: 5). This, the authors found, led to problems with memory, attention, anxiety, and depression. There was a lack of provision for these women in the prison system and a lack of staff knowledge around the prevalence and effects of brain injury. This effectively increased the women’s experiences of trauma within an already traumatic environment, and following extensive traumatic experiences. Theresa May’s government stated that it would invest £2 million into community provision for women with experience of domestic abuse as part of the £5 million promised by the Female Offenders Strategy, develop guidance on working with ‘vulnerable women’, and support the roll-out of trauma-informed training for probation and prison staff.

However, critics have argued that there is a severe lack of real infrastructure to support women experiencing or who have experienced abuse (Booth et al., 2018). For example, Women’s Aid (2019) have noted that in 2017–2018 an average of 400 referrals to refuges in England and Wales were declined each week. Without ring-fenced funding for women’s services, which have been devastated by almost a decade of austerity (Alston, 2018), women are unlikely to receive the support most needed. Critical analysis of the Female Offenders Strategy (MoJ, 2018) also does not make for positive reading on the government’s commitment to tackling links between criminalisation and domestic violence. Women in Prison (2018), Sisters Uncut (2018), Coles (2018), and Booth et al. (2018) have all pointed to a lack of secure and sustained funding for women facing trauma, as well as the well-known harms inflicted by solutions which lie within CJSs, particularly in imprisonment, but also in the roll-out of residential women’s centres as further sites of control.

While the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) (2018) claim that residential centres will mean women can be detained closer to home and maintain outside links, while also accessing support and education, with only five pilot sites currently proposed women are still likely to be situated away from their communities and families. Community-based women’s centres are closing (The Howard League, 2016), and their funding is precarious (Farmer, 2019). This is not the vision many campaign groups had for community-based answers to criminal justice and women will still remain confined in residential centres and exploited for low-cost labour, replicating the harms of prison (Sisters Uncut, 2018). Arguably the government cannot support vulnerable women while their proposed solutions still lie within the framework of the CJS (Sisters Uncut, 2018). ¹ Furthermore, Booth et al. (2018) highlight that the language in the Strategy is problematic. For example, the concept of ‘productive citizens’ (MoJ, 2018: 334) suggests criminalised women are unproductive members of society, reinforcing stigmatised portrayals of women and emphasising individualised solutions to structural problems while responsibilising criminalised women, who experience a lack of capital, to undergo individualised change (Hart, 2017b).

Despite the government’s apparent concern for new forms of violence against women, including coercive control, the relationship between women’s criminalisation and broad experience of domestic violent crime, to include coercive control, has not adequately been confronted. While the recent case of Sally Challen ² has drawn media attention to the operation of coercive control in murder conviction cases, there appears to continue to be recourse to the ‘mad/bad’ dichotomy in appeal cases and subsequent comments of the appeal judges (Bettinson, 2019). Additionally, such cases only show the sharp end of coercive control, women’s criminalisation in less extreme consequences of coercive control has been less considered. For example, Light et al. (2013) highlight that almost half of women in prison have carried out their offence to support someone else’s drug use. Women’s Aid (2019) have found that two-thirds of domestic violence survivors’ partners held money from them as a form of control. Hadi and Chesney-Lind (2014: 33) speak of a ‘criminalisation of victimisation’ where, in cases of domestic abuse, women find their relationships as a ‘site of correctional regulation’ (Pollack, 2007: 158–159). Österman (2018) also has found that criminalised women often first come into contact with the CJS when requesting assistance in the context of abusive relationships.

With notable exceptions in the case of the latter, both policy and academic debates around gendered violence have struggled to move beyond a criminal justice-focused solution. While focusing on sexual violence, McGlynn and Westmarland (2018) have made important points about the desire for ‘kaleidoscopic justice’ among victim-survivors, which requires a move away from law- and policy-focused solutions within conventional CJSs. Justice, in these solutions, is defined by the state without recognition of the plurality of positions of victim-survivors. The authors conducted workshops and interviews with 20 victim-survivors and concluded that ‘justice’ for these women involved constantly shifting notions of ‘consequences, recognition, dignity, voice, prevention and connectedness’ (2018: 2) where justice is an ongoing, lived, and ever-evolving process rather than just an ending or result. However, this argument fails to fully disentangle justice from the CJS, suggesting it can form a parallel method of resolution. Although not a direct focus of this research, it is proposed by the current study that an abolitionist approach based on ‘women wise penology’ (Carlen, 1990: 109) is necessary for justice to prevail. ³ Nonetheless, McGlynn and Westmarland’s (2018) conclusions are a good jumping-off point to open debates around social and gendered justice.

Desistance

The exact meaning of desistance is something which has been contested in the field of criminology. Weaver and McNeill (2010: 37) note ‘most criminologists have associated desistance with both ceasing and refraining from offending’. Sampson and Laub (1993) and Laub and Sampson (2003) discuss the belief that an age-graded theory of informal social control can explain the desistance process. This theory focuses on sociogenic accounts of desistance and explores the role of social bonds (Maruna, 1999; Weaver and McNeill, 2010). Social bonds signify ‘an individual has emotional attachments to societal goals’; correspondingly they have pledged to reach these goals by behaving within the confines of the law (McNeill et al., 2012: 5). As such, it is argued in sociogenic accounts that people are more likely to ‘offend’ when societal bonds are absent, individuals must therefore accrue, over time, the necessary means to avoid this (Sampson and Laub, 1993). Adults may discover activities such as entering the military, marriage, paid employment, and parenthood can all ‘knife off offending trajectories’ (Salvatore and Taniguchi, 2012: 738). Nevertheless, as Sampson and Laub’s (1993) study is based upon the lives of 500 White American men, accordingly it is not viable to conclude that theories of social bonding can be used to explain women’s desistance (Giordano et al., 2002).

The study of desistance has expanded to include discussions around the importance of social structure (Farrall, 2014; Farrall et al., 2010; Hart, 2017b) and the experiences of criminalised women (Giordano et al., 2002; Hart, 2017a; Österman, 2018; Rodermond et al., 2016; Rumgay, 2004; Stone et al., 2018; among others). Nonetheless, discussions surrounding patriarchy and neo-liberalism have been largely missing from previous desistance research, including those which focus on women’s experiences. This is evident in the disjuncture between the bodies of literature on women’s desistance and domestic abuse. Nonetheless, Robin Gålnander (2019) has recently argued that women’s experiences of violent victimisation can hinder their desistance attempts. While we also find support for this argument, we also find other trajectories which suggest further research into desistance and domestic abuse is crucial. This is discussed further below.

By locating women’s desistance as parallel to men’s, criminology replicates the substantive inequalities which often result in women entering the CJS in the first place, in addition to the substantive inequalities which they then face within a patriarchal system. Relationships may be a central feature within desistance literature which focuses on the importance of ‘social bonds’ (Laub and Sampson, 2003; Sampson and Laub, 1993) but there is a lack of gendered focus within ‘social bonds’ texts. Therefore, women’s problematic relationships go unrecognised. For men, ‘the love of a good woman’ (Maruna, 2001: 30) may cut ties to ‘offending’, but the evidence provided by Roberts (2015) is indicative that abusive relationships can see women initially become involved in crime but likewise later cycle in and out of the CJS (Österman, 2018). A lack of consideration of the gendered experience of relational aspects to desistance was highlighted, for example, in the 2017 publication of Lord Farmer’s review on the importance of strengthening family ties to prevent reoffending and reduce intergenerational crime, which unapologetically focused on the male experience. Despite the asymmetrical gendered presentation of men in the CJS as perpetrators of domestic violence, the report failed to address the problematic issues surrounding supporting family ties for domestic violence perpetrators. As will be shown, many criminalised women are expected to be the ‘good woman’ (Maruna, 2001: 30) in the desistance narratives of the men whom they materially and emotionally support, without consideration for their own narratives, including experiences of victimisation and trauma. A more recent (2019) Farmer Report on the experiences of criminalised women has, however, drawn attention to women’s experiences of abuse and violence. Nonetheless, responsibilising language within the report and recommendations suggests that these are individual rather than structural issues. Within the CJS itself, women see liability directed away from the state and prison schemes in favour of scrutinising individual actions, as opposed to any causal structural inequality; hardship becomes viewed as ‘criminogenic need’ (Hart, 2017a: 270). Hart’s (2017b) research discovered that while criminalised women have a strong will upon release from prison to desist, their determination is hampered by the troublesome discourse surrounding this concept of responsibilisation. This discourse, allied with ‘a severe lack in all forms of capital’ (Hart, 2017b: 152), means women leave prison with minimal arrangements in place and consequentially recidivism is ever more likely (Hart, 2017b). Blaming the pathology of individuals permits discussion on the social injustices worsened by the CJS, drug and state welfare reforms to be avoided (Leverentz, 2014). Provided the impression that those in prison are responsible for their personal re-entry or ‘rehabilitation’ is upheld, the state can continually clear itself of any wrongdoing. Such narratives also serve as a diversion from the evidence that ‘social policies and stigma inhibit desistance’ (Leverentz, 2014: 182).

Taken together, the body of literature on women’s experiences of criminalisation, domestic violence, and desistance suggest that women’s trajectories may be affected by the intersection of the three processes. It is the aim of this article to explore how this is experienced by a small group of women based in the North West of England.

Methodology

The findings from this study are based on two separate but interlinked projects by the authors, both considering women’s qualitative desistance experiences in the community, and both undertaken in response to the dearth of women’s voices within the expansive and ever-growing desistance literature. In total, 18 women with experiences of criminalisation were interviewed across the projects, and their narratives form the basis of analysis in this article. Barr’s (2019) research was undertaken as part of a PhD study, at the University of Central Lancashire, generally exploring women’s desistance, within the ‘Northshire’ area and involved a year of observation at Northshire Women’s Centres, as well as 23 narrative interviews ⁴ with staff at two community projects supporting women’s desistance and 16 criminalised women. Half of these criminalised women freely told stories of gendered violence in their lives, without being asked a specific question about this. Barr’s research was not focused exclusively therefore on the link between domestic violence and desistance, but this was something which emerged qualitatively from the findings. ⁵

Christian’s MRes research, at Liverpool John Moores University, on the other hand, was specifically directed at exploring the link between domestic abuse and desistance and involved in-depth narrative interviews with two women with experiences both of domestic violence and desistance attempts. These women were recruited via contact with domestic violence support services. The difficulties involved in the recruitment of criminalised women, and particularly gaining a representative sample, are issues which affected both studies. In particular, Christian’s research was hampered by the University Ethics Board’s insistence on only interviewing those who were not currently subject to probation. The author was approached by a number of women who wanted to take part in the research but had to be rejected on this matter, effectively silencing their narratives.

Both Barr and Christian’s work is underpinned by feminist epistemology and is concerned with drawing attention to women’s subjective and plural experiences. Both studies emphasised the importance of the methodology being participant-led, encouraged by the narrative interviewing technique (McAdams, 1995). Life-course narrative interviewing is also common within desistance research (Maruna, 2001). Carlsson (2012), for example, noted the importance of this type of interviewing in the connection between the subjective and structural. Interviews were conducted within various community projects, in cafes, university buildings, and participants’ homes. Narrative analysis techniques were used in both studies which argue for the importance of the ‘human story’ (Weaver and Weaver, 2013: 272). Both studies elicited similar findings around women’s marginalisation, criminalisation, experiences of the CJS, gendered violence, and desistance.

All participants were fully informed about the purpose of the studies and how their information would be used through participant information sheets, which also gave participants the right to withdraw at any time, and provided information about support organisations in the local areas. All data were stored appropriately and in accordance with the ethical procedures at both universities. In both studies, all participants were allocated pseudonyms. Despite the fact that the ‘scrutiny of violence and abuse as a “sensitive” topic that involves “vulnerable” groups has made ethical clearance more challenging’ (Downes et al., 2014: 1), feminist researchers are able to make the process for the participants empowering, as we hope both projects have done.

Findings

Discussion

Combining findings from two research projects exploring gender and desistance, this article has found that (i) criminalised women’s experiences of gendered violence are such that any exploration of gender and desistance which does not acknowledge this is incomplete, (ii) coercion and control can inform women’s entry into the CJS, (iii) expressions of agency and resistance in abusive interpersonal relationships can also inform women’s offending, yet (iv) women’s experiences of desistance from crime can mask the harm they face in coercive, controlling, and violent relationships. This discussion therefore argues for a reframing of desistance from crime as desistance from harm both theoretically and in practice, and considers what this might entail.

Both research projects make abundantly clear the omnipotence of gendered violence in the lives of criminalised women. In Barr’s (2019) research, for example, domestic violence was such a common experience that it was consistently referred to by the acronym ‘DV’ in Women’s Centre group work. The prevalence of intimate partner violent crime, to include coercive and controlling behaviours, in the life histories of criminalised women is critical to note in any piece of research or intervention into the lives of these women. However, it is also important to note the presence of both historical and current gendered violence in the desistance narratives of these women, and to note that desistance from crime might be the outcome of these abusive relationships, with women continuing to experience gendered harm despite desisting.

Yet the presence of agency in the lives of criminalised women should not be underestimated. While women’s offending might be an integral part of the controlling behaviour of male partners, it may also form a modicum of resistance in these situations. Roberts (2015), for example, shows that women in controlling and coercive relationships often demonstrate agency by offending. In opposition to much discussion on desistance and volition, Giddens (1984) proposes that even when a woman is controlled, her supposed lack of choice does not always result in her being ‘forced into reaction’ (Wilcox, 2006: 17). Giddens (1984: 16) refers to this as the ‘dialectic of control’, describing how ‘all forms of dependence offer some resources whereby those who are subordinate can influence the activities of their superiors’. While the resources allocated to women may be unequal, feminist theories do not regard women as powerless (Wilcox, 2006); opposition to men’s violence is reliant upon women’s agency, irrespective of potential limitations (Kelly, 1988). In cases such as Betty’s, whereby women are involved in crime but are also in a situation that is coercive, it is plausible that resistance or agency may take the form of seizing control of a ‘criminal’ operation from an abuser, for example. While this inhibits desistance, for women in abusive relationships, this action is significant.

Yet, as Barr (2017) highlights, narratives like the one Betty presents should be approached with some caution. While the fact Betty desisted, from an external perspective, was likely viewed by those around her as a positive, in reality her break with this ‘offending’ behaviour was due to her abusive relationship (Barr, 2017). While in many narratives it appears, in concordance with the findings of Gålnander (2019), domestic abuse can contribute to women’s criminalisation and hinder their desistance, the antithesis of this is also true. Abuse can equally lead to desistance and appear to influence behaviour for the ‘better’, but in the context of a harmful relationship. As violent and controlling relationships such as those experienced by Kelly-Marie, Anna, Karen, and Betty show, these can lead to non-offending periods, which might be celebrated by criminal justice agencies invested in their desistance.

The importance of the structural in any investigation of domestic violent crime should also not be underestimated. Speaking at a press conference following the release of the UN Report on poverty within the United Kingdom in 2018, Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, noted the gendered effects of austerity.

If you got a group of misogynists in a room and said how can we make this system work for men and not for women they would not have come up with too many ideas that are not already in place. (Alston quoted in Booth and Butler, 2018)

Therefore, neo-liberal practices seek to support patriarchal power relations and lead to a greater acceptance of the social standards created by patriarchal ideals (Cornwall et al., 2008). According to Hawkesworth (2006: 121), the measures associated with neo-liberalism ‘cut back the very aspects of the state that feminist activists seek to build up’. This has resulted in the problem of the delivery of social services being directed onto women in poverty and other community groups (Cornwall et al., 2008). Civil society is expected to tackle the inadequacies of the state but as such is now a crucial site for mediation and control (Cornwall et al., 2008). Previously, feminist non-government organisations (NGOs), such as Women’s Centres, under the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda, have been forced to remove themselves from any political activity on the basis that they are dependent on arrangements with the state or other large grant providers. Feminism becomes depoliticised and carceral because of neo-liberal will. Thus, becoming empowered is no longer a shared difficulty but linked to the personal improvement of the self (Miraftab, 2004). Policy dictates that it is vital that women become more resourceful, proficient, and accountable for their actions (Cornwall et al., 2008).

Clarke and Chadwick (2018) claim there are often a set of particular circumstances which lead to the incarceration of women; the vast majority are disadvantaged not only in terms of material resources but socially and governmentally. This mirrors women’s responsibility in the home, based on expected gender roles, and inside male-driven neo-liberal capitalist systems (Clarke and Chadwick, 2018). Scraton (2016) notes that for criminalised women, trauma is repeated within the CJS; institutions inappropriately react to the needs of women who are increasingly ostracised. Issues including a lack of mental well-being, deprivation, no fixed address, and experiences of violence are viewed as places where the state can become involved ‘but all too often, the response is to criminalise’ (Clarke and Chadwick, 2018: 52). Patriarchal ideals are established and upheld across the CJS (Clarke and Chadwick, 2018). Carlen (1990) summarises that similarly the connections between class, ethnicity, and gender are exposed by the biased response of the state to criminalised women. While ‘the reliance on punitive responses to structural inequalities is evident’, responsibilisation practices still hold individuals liable for the structural inequalities of society and the state’s role in promoting and encouraging desistance becomes blurred (Clarke and Chadwick, 2018: 52).

As Carlen has argued:

Today, re-integration, re-settlement or re-entry are often used instead of re-habilitation. Yet all these terms, with their English prefix ‘re’, imply that the lawbreakers or ex-prisoners, who are to be ‘re-habilitated’/’re-integrated’/’re-settled’ or ‘re-stored’, previously occupied a social state or status to which it is desirable they should be returned. Not so. The majority of criminal prisoners worldwide have, prior to their imprisonment, usually been so economically and/or socially disadvantaged that they have nothing to which they can be advantageously rehabilitated. Sure, they are returned to their place in society, but from that disadvantaged place they are, too frequently, returned to prison again, and again and again. And it could be argued that, more often than not, it is desirable for governments, markets and capital accumulation that the poor and the powerless should be kept ‘in their place’ – and the rich in theirs. (2012: 3)