Abstract
We would like to acknowledge the contributions to feminist criminology of three early leaders in the field who passed away in the past two years, Roslyn Muraskin, Rita Simon and Laura Fishman. These women had a great impact on the field, starting their careers when the terms “feminist” and “criminologist” rarely were found in the same sentence. Their stalwart scholarship in the face of strong criticism helped feminist criminology develop and thrive.
This special issue of Feminist Criminology commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Division on Women and Crime (DWC) of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and serves as a testament to the diversity and quality of feminist criminological scholarship being produced today. Thirty years ago, the articles in this special issue would have faced difficulty finding acceptance for publication. Today, there are many outlets for feminist scholarship including Feminist Criminology, the official journal of the DWC. Given the number of available publication options for their research, we are thrilled that the authors elected to submit their work to us. Indeed, this 30th anniversary special issue celebrates the maturation of feminist criminology, as evidenced by the scholarship that appears in the following pages.
Originally, we envisioned three substantive areas for this special issue: advancements in feminist criminological theory, methodology, and praxis. However, the scope of the submissions we received was so impressive that we quickly decided fitting the work of DWC scholars into those predefined categories would not be possible. We also anticipated accepting one or perhaps two articles per category, but the number of high-quality submissions enabled us to accept more manuscripts than we originally envisioned, resulting in the introductory essay and six articles that follow.
Christine Rasche, a founding member of the DWC, begins with an introductory essay providing an historical overview of the DWC that helps situate current scholarship in the context of the development of feminist criminology over the past 30 years. Her commentary is then followed by six articles that demonstrate the breadth and depth of feminist criminology today. These articles grapple with important theoretical and methodological issues and address a wide range of topics, including some typically outside the purview of feminist inquiry.
Button and Worthen use an intersectional General Strain Theory framework to examine the victimization experiences and negative outcomes of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning youth and youth involved in same-sex sexual behavior. Their conclusions emphasize the theoretical importance of both intersectionality and queer criminology.
Morash, Andersen, and Yingling also advance theoretical knowledge in their feminist pathways analysis of juvenile court responses to delinquent girls and their adult caretakers. The results of their study suggest the need to carefully evaluate how girls’ juvenile court experiences interact with and are informed by their victimization experiences.
Welsh and Rajah underscore the value of feminist-informed methodologies in their institutional ethnographic analysis of the “invisible punishments” facing formerly incarcerated women returning to the community. Their study demonstrates the utility of institutional ethnography for feminist research aimed at illuminating women’s reentry experiences.
González, Freilich, and Chermak examine an understudied topic in feminist criminology: women’s involvement in terrorism. Their analysis offers a closer examination of the gendered nature and context of U.S. women’s involvement in domestic terrorist activities and offers insight into the gendered pathways of female terrorists.
Kringen evaluates the status of gender-informed policing scholarship published over the past 40 years focusing on three major domains: job performance, job experience, and blocked opportunities. Her findings suggest that most of the increase has been on job experience while the important policy domain, blocked opportunities, gets comparatively little attention, thus illustrating the need for increased feminist scholarship to help inform and improve policies for women police officers.
Finally, Kim and Merlo likewise assess the status of gender-informed scholarship, but theirs is a comparison of papers presented at the annual meetings of the European Society of Criminology (ESC) and the ASC, respectively, as well as articles published in Feminist Criminology. Although the authors note that Feminist Criminology has been the primary outlet for international research on women and crime, the results of their analysis emphasize the need for a more deliberate international focus of the journal, as well as within both the ASC and the ESC.
Taken together, we believe the articles in this special issue are a bellwether of the continuing growth and impact of feminist scholarship in criminology. We have greatly enjoyed the process of developing this special issue and applaud the rich scholarship represented here. We hope that our readers likewise will be heartened by the impressive tradition of feminist criminological scholarship that has developed over the past 30 years, and we look forward to the next 30 years of feminist advancements in criminology.