Staying with the Social Project: A Review of Feminist Criminology

Introduction

Feminist criminology emerged more than three decades ago as a feminism-informed field and approach to criminological work. The field has expanded and matured as it focuses on women’s experiences, structural and systemic barriers encountered by women in the justice system, and how circulating power impacts both women and prison. Throughout its evolution, feminist criminology has focused on addressing masculinist bias in criminological research (Chesney-Lind and Morash, 2013) within a traditionally male-dominated field. At its core, the primary focus of feminist criminology is to produce and circulate women-centred knowledge.

This essay briefly introduces some dominant criminological theories, reviews the impacts and contributing factors to the development of a feminist critique of criminology, and the subsequent formation of feminist criminology. Of particular interest is the development of various feminist perspectives and their impact on feminist criminology, particularly as they relate to changes and pivotal events in Canada’s penal system over the last 30 years. Throughout its evolution and development, diverging areas of focus and tension between feminist criminologists emerged. Among them, those working to capture women’s experiences and improve conditions in their lives as well as those working within a feminist context inside non-feminist institutions (e.g., prisons), focused on ‘Real Women’. These scholars are contrasted by those focusing on power networks and circulations throughout prisons and its impact on the women within them, constructing their work around ‘The Woman’. This essay maps the field through key pieces of literature published in English. Though not exhaustive, this essay argues that to continue the important work undertaken by feminist criminologists, we must work with and not against the tension between studying ‘Real Women’ and ‘The Woman’. That is, for feminist criminology to continue to expand and ‘spill’ over onto other areas (e.g., mainstream criminology), we must not understand the field in discrete and rigid terms. Rather, a focus on common feminist threads and the interest in social justice action to improve the lives of incarcerated and at-risk women must prevail.

Criminology and the Emergence of Feminist Criminology

Criminology has traditionally been understood as a male-centric discipline in which men have also accounted for the majority of people charged under the criminal code in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2019; Wallace, 2004). Other countries, such as Australia, also report similar dynamics (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2004; Belknap, 2014). Despite differences in criminal charging of men and women, much of the work within mainstream criminology failed to recognize or account for gender in its theorizing. The invisibility of women in criminology is evident within mainstream theories, including Merton’s (1938) anomie theory. The theory explains crime by understanding the various forms of strain experienced by an individual and the disjuncture between common goals (e.g., monetary success), and the means to achieve those goals (e.g., education, employment), which acknowledge class differences existing within society but not gender inequalities. In this theory, understanding the causes of crime based on strains faced and experienced by an individual might suggest that women (facing less access than men for monetary success) would commit significantly higher crimes as a reaction to this strain. However, statistics indicate that this is not the case.

Similarly, Sutherland’s (1949) differential association theory, Hirschi’s (1969) control theory, and Becker’s (1963) labelling theory, while heavily taken up by mainstream criminologists, have been critiqued for failing to address women and gender. Sutherland’s (1949) differential association theory, sometimes presented as a general theory of crime, aimed to address ‘cultural heterogeneity’ related to pro and anti-criminal associations. Despite this attempt at a ‘general’ theory, it was used to apply to men and did not account for women’s involvement in crime (Balfour and Comack, 2014).

Hirschi’s (1969) control theory failed to account for women in his theory of understanding conformity. Given women’s higher likelihood of conformity than men, evident in their under-representation in statistics about crime, Hirschi’s theory might have made women a central point of the analysis. Instead, Hirschi focused his attention on males.

The 1960s and 1970s brought a focus within criminology on labelling and conflict theories. Despite this opportunity for more inclusive theorizing of women and crime, Becker’s (1963) labelling theory failed to fully account for women when examining deviance and the voices of individuals often subjected to labelling (Balfour and Comack, 2014).

Labelling and conflict theories of that era are among many others in the criminological cannon that either omitted women or treated data on women and crime as an afterthought. These theories followed previous understandings of certain women being biologically more ‘criminal’ than others based on physiological traits (Lombroso and Ferrero, 1985 [1890]). Scholars attending to women and gender within criminology critiqued these omissions and began responding to these dynamics within their work.

Early criminological theories that existed about women developed from a biological perspective. Women were theorized as inferior and less evolved compared to men. They were described as sick, deviant, and otherwise violating the ideals of femininity because of their involvement in the criminal justice system (Smart, 1976). Early feminist approaches to criminology comprised mainly of critiques of criminological work completed primarily by men and focused on male subjects. The work of Smart (1976) and Bertrand (1969), in the late 1960s and 1970s, drew attention to the invisibility of women in criminological research. Their work provided a feminist critique of criminological research to date and addressed the omission and pathologizing of women.

Conversely, within some criminological studies, women may not have been included at all. Further, criminalized women may have been dropped from data sets and otherwise omitted from studies, thereby making them less visible and normalizing ideas of men as violent or criminal (Chesney-Lind and Morash, 2013; Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). Ultimately, the emergence and influence of first and second-wave feminism created space for a feminist critique of criminology and later, the emergence of feminist criminology.

Feminism and Feminist Criminology

Both first and second-wave feminist movements significantly influenced the development of feminist criminology. The 1960s and 1970s brought a heavy focus on equality and drew attention to the discrimination of women. Second-wave feminism highlighted attempts to acknowledge diversity and fight gender bias and discrimination (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). These decades also demarcate the period during which feminism ‘joined’ criminology. In its original conception, feminist criminology was heavily influenced and guided by liberal feminist scholars focusing on the exclusion of women and gender from criminological research. The debate emerged whether women should be treated as equals (to men) concerning sentencing treatment and outcomes.

Early feminist criminologists drew attention to the problematic application of ‘general’ theories of crime (e.g., strain theory). They argued that these theories were developed using primarily male samples and subsequently applied to understand women’s criminality or pathways to crime (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). To avoid the continuation of this dynamic, early feminist criminologists called for the inclusion of gender analysis in criminological work. Burgess-Proctor (2006) argues that feminist criminology was formed at a critical point during the feminist movement more broadly. Following the beginning of second-wave feminism, minority groups (e.g., feminists of colour and/or minority groups) found themselves underrepresented and underexplained by feminist theories. During this period, concern grew that many feminist theories were essentializing and reductionist of women’s experiences – a view that has remained a critical debate in both feminism and feminist criminology.

Another approach dubbed ‘sameness versus difference’ also emerged, influenced by liberal feminist thinking. Some early feminist scholars argued that women needed to be treated as equal to men within legal and justice systems (see MacKinnon, 1987). Rather than promoting the consideration of less severe approaches for both women and men, the equality argument has resulted in increased severity of women’s sentences and treatment in custody (Moore, 2008; Snider, 2003). Other scholars argued that women’s sentences and punishment should reflect the unique and differing pathways to crime, types of crimes and gendered experiences that differ from those of men (Smart, 1976, 1989; Snider, 2003). However, as Naffine (1997) articulates, in much of criminological research (and early feminist criminology), gender is only considered about women. Further, women’s crime, crime rates and conditions face comparison against the norm (considered to be men).

In the early stages of third-wave feminism, radical feminist scholars focused on patriarchal systems and their role in shaping gender relations, power dynamics and women’s oppression. This focus brought new perspectives to feminist criminology, including the dominance approach, which acknowledged power, privilege and inequality as they related to women’s experiences (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). Although a more complex analysis could be found in this approach than the liberal feminist understandings that preceded it, the dominance approach was not without its critiques, particularly by women of colour, lesbian or marginalized women for once again essentializing of women by claiming to speak for all (Burgess-Proctor, 2006). Further, both liberal and radical perspectives were critiqued for their simplistic notions of equality, which is arguably a key component of a liberal feminist perspective (Burgess-Proctor, 2006). Response to these critiques was articulated through the emergence of an intersectional model informed by multiracial feminism.

Early Research and Focus Areas

In feminist criminology’s early years, research focused heavily on women as offenders, victims, and workers in the criminal justice system; what Chesney-Lind and Morash (2013) refer to as ‘the standard trilogy of our field’ (p. 297). While research in the field has extended beyond these three sole areas of research, the trilogy nonetheless constitutes a significant body of work. Specifically, these topics have been the source of considerable debate regarding the constitution of criminalized women (Comack and Brickey, 2007). Further, they can be traced to various forms of feminisms, including empiricist, standpoint and postmodern.

Feminist scholars of the 1980s provided shifting and new perspectives. Harding’s (1986) argument states that the androcentric nature of knowledge claims could provide a ‘correction’ though not a ‘transformation’ of methodological issues of science and quantitative research in particular (see Daly, 1997). In feminist criminology, feminist empiricism provided a scientific understanding of women and for women and attended to the inclusion of data on women in criminological work (Naffine, 1997). Moore (2008), among others (see Laberge, 1991), argues that feminist empiricism addresses the problematic ‘add women and stir’ approach of early criminological theories by developing the understanding of women’s lives as both criminalized women and victims (Naffine, 1997). Thus, feminist empiricism was successful in illustrating what is known about men cannot be extended to understanding women.

However, feminist empiricism faced critique, in that ‘asking the woman question’ in criminology failed to address the need to challenge the male norm. By failing to decentre the male norm, a distinction remained between feminist criminology (taking gender into account) and criminology (male is the norm). As Moore (2008) argues, a fundamental shift is required within criminology to consider gender, masculinity and maleness as a variable, rather than the norm.

Standpoint feminism, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, focused on women’s subjugation and alternate understandings than the dominant male view (Harding, 1986; Smith, 1987). Women’s experiences inform standpoint feminist views (Daly, 1997). Although some have argued that standpoint feminism played a lesser role in criminology, it contributed to a body of literature focusing on women’s victimization (Smart, 1995). Certainly, feminist scholarship and various feminist perspectives have influenced the development and evolution of feminist victimology as its own area of study. Feminist victimology critically examines the abuse experienced by women and children, often at the hands of men known to them (Carrington and Hogg, 2002). Though, it is also a perspective concerned with how to define, discuss, research, and develop interventions for individuals deemed victims and those who may also commit crimes (Barberet, 2010).

Within feminist criminology, feminist standpoint perspectives are evident in research in which women script, co-author, or otherwise tell their own stories (Moore, 2008). In this sense, standpoint feminism aides in giving voice to incarcerated or marginalized women otherwise not heard from in criminological research. Centring the voices of incarcerated or marginalized women further developed the focus on ‘Real Women’ in feminist criminological scholarship.

However, representation issues also emerge when considering which voices speak for which groups (Moore, 2008; Naffine, 1997). Voices that become or remain privileged fail to adequately take differences (and commonalities) into account beyond the broad categories of woman or prisoner. Such criticisms of privileging certain perspectives, namely white, middle-class women’s voices run throughout commentary on second-wave feminism and partially inform the shift towards third-wave feminism informed by postmodern, multiracial and intersectional feminism (Burgess-Proctor, 2006).

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, postmodern feminism emerged, emphasizing discourse and reality constructed through such discourse. Within feminist criminology, this included a focus on power and the work of scholars such as Foucault (1995 [1979]) rather than patriarchy (as radical and standpoint feminism had done) (Moore, 2008). For Hannah-Moffat (2001), patriarchy is a less useful analytical tool because it does not adequately address power and knowledge networks. Usage of power and knowledge as analytical tools provided scholars such as Hannah-Moffat (2001) the ability to examine power and governance within prisons. A further strength of this approach is that it makes visible other factors such as class and race (Moore, 2008).

Postmodern feminism was critiqued for not illustrating how it might bring about change and resistance when there is such a concentrated focus on deconstructing power and knowledge networks. Snider (2003) offers a scathing critique of postmodern feminism in feminist criminological work by stating that the approach is complicit with punitive characteristics in discourses and practices around punishment. For Snider (2003), doing so further constitutes knowledge about women in conflict with the law and more harshly shapes penal approaches towards them. Snider (2003) refers to this as the ‘perils of good intention’ (369) related to the culture of punitiveness that emerged from zero-tolerance policies involving counter-charging women for self-defence.

A further critique of postmodern feminist approaches in criminology is the attention to ‘who’ is studied. Daly (1997) pointed out that postmodern feminism brought a shift from studying ‘Real Women’ to studying ‘The Woman’ constructed through legal and criminological discourse. While some embraced this shift (see Smart, 1990), others resisted it and continued to focus their research on ‘Real Women’ (see Daly, 1992), which centred women’s voices and experiences that had only just begun to be heard.

Within feminist criminological research, scholars insisted on meaningfully incorporating race, class, and gender as analytical tools. This shift provided multi-dimensional approaches and outcomes not seen earlier. Rather than interpreting women’s experiences through the view of men’s, locating race, class, and gender examined these issues as they intersect with various forms of inequality (Burgess-Proctor, 2006).

Scholars working within this framework focused on multiple and often intersecting and contingent inequalities (Daly, 1997). The need to incorporate race, class and gender into analysis brought the emergence of an intersectional model largely informed by multiracial feminism (Burgess-Proctor, 2006; Crenshaw, 1989). This approach argues that gender relations do not occur outside or independent of race, class, sexuality, age, physical abilities, among other locations (Baca Zinn and Thorton Dill, 1996, 2016; Daly, 1997). Together, these factors constitute an individual’s social location. For Daly (1997), such factors are not additive but rather interlocking. They acknowledge both privilege and inequality experienced by individuals in various settings. Thus, as Burgess-Proctor (2006) argues, multiracial feminism is relational and addresses both structural limitations and women’s agency.

There are undoubtedly further nuances to these aspects of feminist thought as they relate to feminist criminology. However, the emergence of postmodern feminism and multiracial feminism marked a period of maturity within feminist criminology. There was a noticeable expansion in the breadth of topics studied by feminist criminologists and less attention paid to establishing why feminism was necessary within criminology. In Canada, the 1990s brought significant attention and changes to penal approaches to women. These changes were followed closely by feminist criminology.

Feminist Criminology: Troubling What and Who is Known

The emergence of feminist criminology underlined current issues facing incarcerated women. It provided new perspectives on historical issues such as confined women in the history of penology and their omission from the mainstream narrative. The work of Bosworth (2000) on the history of women’s imprisonment at Hôpital de la Salpêtrière in Paris, illustrates how feminist criminological approaches reveal issues and linkages between gender and punishment. That is, the relationship between the two has been obscured in the mainstream history of penology. Bosworth (2000) argues that it is unclear how masculinity and femininity gave shape and legitimacy to imprisonment. The history of imprisonment was presented in such a way that gender was erased. For Bosworth, the work of Foucault (1995 [1979]), Rothman (1971) and Ignatieff (1978) has solidified ideas of 19th century birth and development of the prison. Though, little attention was paid to earlier (17th and 18th century) forms of imprisonment and confinement of women in Hôpital de la Salpêtrière’s maison de force and école de réform (19th and early 20th century) (2000).

Feminist perspectives examining the history of women’s confinement appear in a Canadian context in Hannah-Moffat’s (2001) review of the Mercer Reformatory that opened its doors to women in the late 19th century. Hannah-Moffat (2001) provides a discursive analysis of historical documents from the Mercer that reveal the forms of power and policies applied to non-conforming or criminalized women. In this study, the use of maternally based programmes and attempts at regulating the women into cooperative daughterly subjects played a significant role.

Hannah-Moffat’s (2001) work exemplifies the work of postmodern feminist approaches. She incorporates Foucault’s work and a body of governmentality literature to provide insight into Canadian penal strategies from historical to contemporary. Her analysis centres on ‘The Woman’ rather than ‘Real Women’, and she is explicit with her intention not to provide institutional histories nor capture the experiences of women prisoners (15).

Both Bosworth (2000) and Hannah-Moffat’s (2001) contributions illustrate the earlier pattern of omission of women from research and further the benefits of incorporating gender as a key research consideration when conducting historical analyses. Further, both works provided a foundational understanding of the construction of ‘The Woman’ in historical penal contexts.

Failures to attend to the women categorized as criminal in scholarship persisted. A dearth in the literature attending to the needs of at-risk or incarcerated women remained evident in contemporary studies of confined and incarcerated women. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were multiple calls for the Canadian Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) to close Canada’s only prison for federally sentenced women (those sent to federal institutions and sentenced to 2 years plus a day). ¹ The Kingston Prison for Women (P4W), located in Kingston, Ontario, opened in 1934. The calls to close P4W centred around the low number of women incarcerated in P4W, the unsatisfactory conditions, and lack of access to programming. The long distances between the women and their families and communities were also presented as deeply problematic (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000). Further, Indigenous scholars and activists called attention to the overrepresentation of Indigenous women (incarcerated at rates higher than the non-Indigenous population and Indigenous men) (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000; Monture-Angus, 1999).

Compounding issues included distinct differences between incarcerated men and women, such as women’s increased likelihood to be primary or sole caregivers to their children before incarceration, less extensive criminal histories, and reduced likelihood of reconviction. Women report higher rates of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, low education, poverty, and welfare (i.e., receiving financial income support from state sources) and are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health conditions (Shaw, 1994; Zinger, 2018). These differences have become part of the debates, tensions, and evolution of work conducted by feminist criminologists. Attention to these issues and the women who experience them has been central to the development of feminist criminology. Specifically, how women are constituted by those studying their experiences and whether their stories are told at all returns to the same debate about focus: to study ‘Real Women’ or ‘The Woman’.

In response to the growing voices about the conditions of federally incarcerated women in Canada and several suicides of primarily Indigenous women in P4 W in the late 1980s, a task force was created by the Solicitor General. The Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women (TFFSW) comprised of representatives from community organizations, Indigenous and minority groups, and government members (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000). In 1990, the TFFSW released their report titled Creating Choices. The federal government largely accepted the report’s recommendations, and CSC was tasked with beginning the implementations. However, the recommendations were quickly reinterpreted through CSC’s hierarchal approach and resulted in the exclusion of Elizabeth Fry Societies, among others, from the implementation process (Balfour and Comack, 2014). Creating Choices recommended closing P4 W and replacing it with five regionally-based women’s facilities across the country, including a healing lodge for Indigenous women. Recommendations included fundamental changes to how these facilities would be run and better function to serve women. The report focused on women-centred approaches from which the numerous recommendations were based. Hannah-Moffat and Shaw (2000) summarized these as ‘1) empowerment, 2) the provision of meaningful choices, 3) treating women with respect and dignity, 4) the provision of a physically and emotionally supportive environment, 5) the sharing of responsibility for women’s welfare between institutional staff, community members and the women themselves’ (p. 21). Despite the differing approaches for implementation proposed by the task force and actions taken by CSC, between 1995 and 1997, the new facilities opened across Canada (Pollack, 2009).

Feminism and Criminology in Canada: Parallel Events and Responses

Deeply contrasting these events and the progressive and women-centred recommendations of the TFFSW was the treatment of women prisoners inside the further deteriorating P4 W. Lack of information about transfers to new regional facilities decreased funding (a result of redirection of funding to build new prisons). This, coupled with junior and untrained correctional staff, resulted in a confrontation in 1994 at P4W. During the confrontation between some incarcerated women and correctional staff, all-male teams of riot squads forcibly extracted women from their cells. They conducted forced strip searches (against CSC policy), among other forms of mistreatment, citing information about a plan to attack staff (Balfour and Comack, 2014). The confrontation was videotaped and obtained by the CBC programme The Fifth Estate. In response to the footage, a full inquiry was called, and the government appointed jurist Madam Justice Louise Arbour to commission the inquiry (Arbour, 1996). In her subsequent report, Justice Arbour referred to the women in P4 W as ‘high needs/low risk’, a term that provides much insight into the lives of incarcerated women and contradicts CSC’s use of risk assessment for security classification purposes (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000).

Reactions differed significantly in response to the construction of new facilities, the implementation of Creating Choices and the coverage of the confrontation at P4 W. These responses were compounded by and coincided with a public outcry about the infamous Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo’s arrest and trials happening around the same time. The Bernardo and Homolka cases were well-publicized in Canada for their involvement in the kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and murder of two young women. Homolka was offered a plea deal to testify against Bernardo (her husband) in exchange for a more lenient sentence. Subsequent to the plea deal, videotapes of the torture and murder of their victims were uncovered. They questioned whether Homolka was a victim of Bernardo’s control and abuse or a complicit participant in the murders. The public’s response was swift and called for Homolka’s deal to be revoked (Verdun-Jones, 2016). Unsurprisingly, public backlash focused on the perceived increased risk of the women housed in P4 W and fear for the community. They called for higher fences, additional cameras and tighter security (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000), while social justice and women’s organizations, scholars and activists were critical of CSC’s implementation of the Creating Choices recommendations. However, as Pollack (2009) argues, the image of ‘tinkering with prisons’ only further bolsters their legitimacy in the public’s view, as evident with CSC’s women-centred empowerment approach following the release of Creating Choices.

This series of events, reports and inquiries occurring in Canada between 1989 and 1997 serve as indicators of the climate of fighting for improved rights and conditions for incarcerated women, CSC’s response and public backlash. They also provide a complex backdrop to the growth, evolution, tensions and debates within feminist criminology during this time. These events raised important questions about the future of women’s penology in Canada and beyond (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000).

Feminist and social justice critics viewed the Creating Choices recommendations as a co-optation of feminist principles and values (Monture-Angus, 1999; Moore, 2008) including empowerment, and provision of choices. CSC’s tactics appeared to serve as a means of driving forward a neoliberal agenda of responsibilizing women for their own mistakes and misfortunes. Feminist scholars and prison reformers saw CSC’s use of empowerment as a compromised idea of the term’s true meaning. Instead, it ignored structural factors impacting the women and focused solely on empowerment as the core ideal that could change their lives (Balfour and Comack, 2014; Fayter, 2016; Pollack, 2005).

Risk vs Need: Regulating Women

With CSC’s new correctional plan and policies for women came the practice of security classification based on risk assessments conducted by the correctional service. This approach results in higher numbers or types of risk factors and higher security classification. However, as Hannah-Moffat (2014) argues, doing so fails to recognize the corresponding ‘need’ to each ‘risk’ and thereby classifies higher need women as higher risk. In turn, these women are less able to access programming, socialization offered in shared spaces, and have regular communication regular communication with family or children outside. In this way, women came to be at odds with Justice Arbour’s earlier statement that women in P4 W were ‘high needs/low risk’ (Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000).

As Monture-Angus (1999) and Comack (2018) articulate, this approach fails to acknowledge the current and historical colonial oppression of Indigenous people. Further, it obscures structural and systemic factors and instead focuses attention to the individual level. Monture-Angus (1999) argues that the risk assessments measure the colonial effects that have impacted both individuals and Indigenous communities as a whole. She states, ‘what is being measured is not “risk” but one’s experiences as part of an oppressed group’ (p. 27).

Given this problematic practice, it is unsurprising that Indigenous women are often ranked as higher risk (need) and classified as an increased security risk and placed in maximum security facilities. Their classification to maximum security facilities then, in turn, makes them ineligible for transfer to the Healing Lodge, where they may access culturally informed programming and direct communication with Elders (Monture-Angus, 2000). CSC’s approach to high levels of security and restrictions placed upon incarcerated women based on their institutional and criminal histories was later found to be discriminatory and subject to the Human Rights Commission (Moore, 2008). In this sense, ‘The Woman’ is constructed through assessment classification as risk-laden, and the needs of ‘Real Women’ are unanswered (see Fayter, 2016).

The language used by CSC to appear gender-responsive and make women centred choices connect to a broader dominant contemporary trend of women’s penology. As Bloom et al. (2005) point out, legal and criminal responses are gendered and contribute to shaping policies enacted upon women and differ from their male counterparts. The penal community, including CSC, has realized this and moved towards gender-responsive language (Hannah-Moffat, 2014). As Hannah-Moffat (2014) articulates, the shift towards integrating gender into penal policies and the integration of risk/need assessment models raise further questions about the future of women’s penal regimes in the context of risk and gender and contradictory understandings of both responsibility and women’s choice.

Incarcerated Women: Victims or Violent?

What emerges from the neoliberal risk management approach implemented by CSC is a representation of women as dangerous, risk-laden, and able to change their path through empowerment and taking responsibility. Such a representation not only ignores structural inequality, poverty, and low education but further solidifies the idea that incarcerated women are volatile, dangerous and in need of regulation through penal policy to protect the public (Balfour and Comack, 2014). The representation of criminalized women as violent overshadows the same women’s potential experiences as victims and fails to acknowledge the complexity of women’s potential victimization and use of violence (Comack, 2018; Comack et al., 2008). As some feminist victimologists argue, victims can be viewed as invisible or responsible for their circumstances; in this way, the harms against them are minimized (Barberet, 2010). Thus, this notion is inconsistent with the realities of why many women in Canada and elsewhere commit crimes and how it relates to their histories of abuse, victimization, trauma, and use of violence.

The majority of crimes committed by women in Canada are non-violent, property-based offences (theft under $5,000 and fraud) (Pollack, 2009). This trend is also evident in other countries and overwhelmingly relates to economic inequality as well as reductions to welfare and social programming (Ferraro and Moe, 2006; Mosher, 2014). Women’s pathways to crime differ from those of men and require gender-informed responses (Covington and Bloom, 2007). Criminalized women are also more likely to have experienced physical or sexual abuse. The emergence of feminist scholarship in criminology has certainly drawn attention to this fact, coupled with the problem of men’s violence against women. An early focus of the feminist criminological project included the establishment of women as victims. Daly and Chesney-Lind (1988) point to several possibilities for this focus. First, the link to patriarchal power focused upon during second-wave feminism. Second, the undertheorizing of the topic of male violence against women within criminology garnered the attention of feminist scholars at the time. Finally, the study of women’s victimization (by men) coincided with additional women joining criminology and related fields.

The focus on women’s victimization contrasts with the portrayal of a violent, volatile, criminal woman. Nonetheless, the emergence of ‘woman as offender’ soon became another topic within feminist criminology. Though, at times this topic was addressed without fully exploring the overlap between women’s victimization and offending. Women as victims became a focus within research centred on both ‘Real Women’ and ‘The Woman’ and aimed to understand the contributing factors explaining women’s role in crime (Comack and Brickey, 2007; Comack et al., 2008; Smart, 1989). This shift brought a nuanced view of women’s use of violence, as seen in the work of Bosworth and Carrabine (2001) and Comack (2006). Comack (2011) later articulated that complex connections exist between women’s law violations and their histories of abuse and violence. Such contextualized approaches avoid another tendency within criminology – the attempt to explain women’s violence by the same factors that explain violence by men (Chesney-Lind and Morash, 2013).

Attention to women’s violence and the feminist struggle for equal rights and treatment also generated unintended consequences, including the zero-tolerance policy adopted by police for domestic violence incidents. When women report violent acts against them (particularly within domestic relationships), they often find themselves charged with assault as well (Comack et al., 2008). Changes in practice regarding double-charging may also play a role in the number of women charged, convicted, and sentenced for assaults. Comack et al. (2008) found that such ‘get tough’ policies (e.g., double charging) have resulted in higher numbers of both men and women becoming involved in the criminal justice system. This is part of a more significant trend across Canada and globally, in which the number of women incarcerated has increased, while crime rates have decreased (Balfour, 2006). In Canada, there has been a decrease in the number of women charged with serious offences, but an increase in the total number of women charged for non-violent offences (up 54% since 1977) (Finn et al., 1999). There are indications this pattern is continuing as rates of incarcerated women in federal facilities continue to increase. Following the opening of the new prisons for women (1995 to 1997), numbers of federally incarcerated women increased by 22% (Correctional Service of Canada, 2006). This rise has been attributed to welfare reforms and cuts to social spending such as social services and mental health and education services (Mosher, 2014; Pate, 1999) and has been termed an ‘incarceration spiral’ (Balfour, 2006).

Pollack (2009) articulates that rates of imprisoned Indigenous women are higher again than non-Indigenous women, as illustrated by the jump of 72.5% of imprisoned Indigenous women between 1996 and 2004 in Canada (Sapers, 2006). These numbers are particularly concerning when further contextualized: Indigenous women in Canada make up 4% of the general population. However, 42% of federal female prisoners are Indigenous (higher than Indigenous people overall at 25%) (Zinger, 2020). Although alarming, these numbers alone do not capture the structural or systemic reasons for the reality faced by many incarcerated Indigenous women, including histories of colonialism, trauma, or violence such as those described by Comack (2018). Nor do they reflect alternative (though sometimes controversial) approaches and practices of Indigenous communities of restorative justice, communal healing, and holistic approaches of holding an individual responsible for their choices and actions (Monture-Angus, 1999).

The efforts of Comack (2018), among others (see Pollack, 2005, 2009), aim to capture and bring attention to criminalized women’s experiences by guiding their work around and towards ‘Real Women’. Their work highlights the complexities of women’s lives and experiences that might not otherwise be captured. Research focusing on ‘Real Women’ sheds light on motherhood and motherhood identity salience while incarcerated (Barnes and Stringer, 2014; Ferraro and Moe, 2003, 2006), repercussions of low education levels, the prospect of facing poverty upon release, and re-entry into the community (Pollack, 2009). Additionally, research about ‘Real Women’ has drawn attention to the cognitive shifts to desist from future crime (Giordano et al., 2002) and the complex challenges experienced by incarcerated women.

Facing neoliberal systems of ‘support’ upon re-entry into the community can also present numerous challenges, particularly if there is limited access to meaningful supports, or limits on social assistance eligibility or benefits if previously convicted of welfare fraud (Laberge, 1991; Mosher, 2014). Women may face barriers finding safe and affordable housing, as well as accessing or rebuilding relationships with children, family or friends (Ferraro and Moe, 2003, 2006). It must not be overstated that facing these experiences can be challenging and painful for women (Cimino et al., 2015). Addressing a history of abuse or trauma requires trusted forms of support with open approaches addressing the power imbalance between women and their therapeutic counsellor (Pollack, 2005). Thus, pointing to the importance of trauma and gender-informed and women-centred correctional and community care (Miller and Najavits, 2012; Pollack, 2005).

The work of the scholars discussed, and others have helped to move beyond the representation of ‘The Woman’. Their work has helped provide more complex and contextualized representations of criminalized and incarcerated ‘Real Women’ that extend beyond the victim-offender continuum previously focused on by feminist criminologists.

Divergence and Shared Goals in Feminist Criminology

Feminist criminologists have grown to recognize that ‘women’s and girl’s variation in experiences based on race, gender, and other differences has become another cornerstone of feminist criminology’ (Chesney-Lind and Morash, 2013: 289). Canadian feminist criminologists have been unified in their critique of governing agencies co-opting feminist values and language and integrating such language into their neoliberal approaches to governing criminalized women and social control techniques more broadly (Balfour, 2006; Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2000; Moore, 2008; Pollack, 2009). They have been largely in agreement regarding their criticism of the implementation of Creating Choices, and CSC’s response and implementation of recommendations. However, such Canadian examples highlight a broader emerging tension within the field concerning the limitations of work and approaches that do not incorporate the ‘social project’ – a crucial aspect for some involved in feminist criminology. The tension revisits an early and critical element of feminist criminology: to inform and educate the public and governing bodies about issues as they relate to criminalized women’s lives by capturing their experiences and relating them to structural, systemic, and societal issues. As Balfour (2006) argues, this is absent from a body of work that does not address the ‘social project’ within feminist criminology. Balfour (2006) and Snider (2003) provide similar arguments about postmodern feminism, its role in feminist criminological work, and what they see as complicity in studies and debates about criminalized women. Balfour (2006) views the coupling of feminist criminological work with Foucaultian methods as an alignment with neoliberalism, thereby ignoring structural inequality and social causation. In her view, criminologists can inform the general public about ‘the true fiscal and human costs of neoliberal economics and neo-conservative crime control. Yet, subversive stories of poverty, violence and racism are noticeably absent, and academics are less politically engaged. Just as neoliberalism would have it’ (Balfour, 2006: 746). Thus, women’s voices are not heard via feminist criminological research, which is at odds with the feminist project itself. For Moore (2008), this also renders feminist thought itself unable to provide a political or emancipatory goal.

Moore (2008) also recognizes the divide within feminist criminology between those working to address lack of programming, community support, mental health concerns, other issues facing criminalized women, and those working to deconstruct knowledge and power networks. This tension seemingly returns to the divergent approaches of studying ‘Real Women’ or ‘The Woman’. Chesney-Lind (n.d) argues that criminology focusing too closely on the deconstruction of knowledge and power is among literature that is ‘so intellectually impenetrable that it both disempowers and silences women’ (Chesney-Lind, n.d as cited in Balfour, 2006).

Scholars engaged in the political or policy-centred feminist project include those focusing on programming, gender and trauma-informed responses, and connections with outside supports services pre-release (Comack, 2006, 2018; Covington and Bloom, 2007; Miller and Najavits, 2012; Pollack, 2005, 2009). Other scholars focus on exploring and improving expression and self-discovery opportunities through arts-based approaches (Frigon, 2014; Merrill and Frigon, 2015).

On balance, these approaches have been critiqued for misdirecting their attention to moving forward the feminist project within systems (such as the criminal justice system) that are inherently non-feminist (Snider, 1990). For Snider (1990), the criminal justice system cannot serve as a ‘reliable ally’ of feminist work (145) and investing in it runs the risk of feminists inadvertently furthering the control of women’s lives. Nevertheless, benefits for criminalized women are apparent when feminist practice informs professionals who interact and counsel with imprisoned women, as documented by Pollack (2005). Women recounted to Pollack (2005) their trust in a community agency counsellor (versus a directly hired CSC staff) who was able to counsel them in prison and upon release and thus bridged some access to supports upon re-entry.

Moore (2008) and Chesney-Lind and Morash (2013) highlight the need for feminist criminologists to find common ground and seek ways to move the field forward. Balfour (2006) calls for the need to recognize a plurality of views of women and recognizes Pollack’s (2005) work for providing women’s accounts of their own lives and paying close attention to ways of working with the criminal justice system to improve women’s lives.

Pollack (2005) proposes alternative approaches within feminist criminology that must consider women’s experiences of oppression, particularly as they relate to systemic, structural and interpersonal factors. Balfour (2006) suggests that such an approach to feminist criminological research could be transformative when informed by women’s experiences and the ability to harness their agency.

Several factors are evident in this tension within feminist criminology. First, what or who is studied – i.e. ‘Real Women’ or ‘The Woman’ – continues to generate debate and sometimes divergent approaches to research. Second, various feminist criminologists are choosing to focus on a multitude of topics of study that have contributed to a more diverse and mature field. Rather than attempting to define ‘true’ feminist criminology, the question might be ‘what parts of the project are particular scholars focusing on?’. Ultimately this is a question of whether feminist criminologists and feminists more broadly can conduct feminist work and practice within systems (e.g., criminal justice system) that are not feminist. Can feminist criminologists undertake work guided by feminism in such settings? The trajectory of these questions within feminist criminology continues to unfold as the field matures and transforms. The tensions of scale and focus between theory and more applied solution-oriented approaches echo similar fracturing within other feminist and politically engaged/oriented fields. For example, Conaghan (2000), explores the dynamics of ‘women-centred’ approaches and negotiations surrounding ‘anti-essentialist’ norms within feminist theoretical debates in the legal sphere.

Tension within the field is not necessarily a downfall, but rather, the tensions are worthy of consideration of working with/in and not against. Chesney-Lind and Morash (2013) argue that feminism and feminist theory is incredibly valuable to the entire discipline of criminology. Rather than focusing on one specific or discrete research agenda within feminist criminology, the field has the potential to move beyond the notion of one research agenda instead of another and find common ground, as Moore (2008) proposes. In doing so, feminist criminology can be a field better equipped to tackle broader and global issues such as the treatment of women and girls as a global human rights issue, as proposed by Chesney-Lind and Morash (2013).

Conclusion

Feminist criminology emerged as a field more than three decades ago as a result of the feminist movement and subsequently impacted by various feminist waves and perspectives. These perspectives have contributed to diversifying and strengthening the discipline. Initially, feminist criminologists focused on research about women as victims, offenders and workers within the criminal justice system. Since then, feminist criminology has broadened its focus to highlight the layered experiences of criminalized women and the structural issues they face. Over time, feminist criminologists have been keen to focus on the analysis of race-class-gender as a cornerstone of their work. Throughout, there have been ongoing debates about what feminist criminology embodies and what the field must do to improve the lives of criminalized women. A critical component of this is the need to find common ground and recognize that breadth and depth of work strengthen feminist criminology as a field. Researchers must be careful to avoid the ‘studying down’ of criminalized women while keeping the voices of ‘Real Women’ front and centre.