Understanding Women’s Pathways to Jail: Analyzing the Lives of Incarcerated Women by Dugan L, Yahner L.J & Simpson S.S,(2008).

This research method took a retrospective approach through the life event calendar to collect the data that was used to display the female pathways. It depended on the respondent memory among the women. This method enabled the self reports which are objective and gives a firsthand experience in such a research process. The research was conducted among 351 women who were incarcerated at Baltimore City Detention Centre. There were extensive in-person interviews undertaken with the aid of computerized life event calendar. This research was conducted between January 2001 and April 2002

The research had four major categories of variables, the first was demographics and life contingencies, offence history was the second, illegal/antisocial activity and the last was violent experiences. In the analysis of the variables collected, there were some feminist pathways that were noted as a cause to crime among the females. It was noted that 87% of the women in the sample had experienced at least one violent incident during the calendar period. 13% of the women sample had been victimized by valence during the calendar period but did not attack back. Further, 6% had used violence defensively. 33% of the women in the sample had used violence offensively and had been victimized in other incidents. However, 20% had used violence offensively but had never been victimized.

The findings of this research emphasized the women pathways theory into crime that battered women in relationships are more likely to end up in crime as compared to women who have stable and non-violent relationships.

Reference

Dugan L, Yahner L.J & Simpson S.S,(2008). Understanding Women’s Pathways to Jail: Analyzing the Lives of Incarcerated Women. Retrieved February 11, 2018 from https://ccjs.umd.edu/sites/ccjs.umd.edu/files/pubs/Pathways.pdf