‘It was a safe place for me to be’: accounts of attending women’s community services and moving beyond the offender identity
Radcliffe, Polly and Hunter, Gillian (2016) ‘It was a safe place for me to be’: accounts of attending women’s community services and moving beyond the offender identity. British Journal of Criminology 56 (5), pp. 976-994. ISSN 0007-0955.
Abstract
Based on qualitative analysis of interviews with women attending Women’s Community Services (WCSs), the paper highlights narrative strategies through which women refute the offender identity. Accounts suggest that relationships with key workers and peers and the education and employment opportunities available at the WCSs are crucial in supporting desistance from offending. In addition the accounts demonstrate an awareness of the social structural disadvantage in which their offending is embedded. In the face of a renewed emphasis by the Ministry of Justice on the punishment of women serving community sentences and the ending of dedicated funding streams for WCSs, the paper argues that desistance rather than the Risk, Need, Responsivity model best explains what is effective for women attending WCSs.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | community sentences, Women’s Community Services, desistance, offender identity, gender, stigma |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Crime & Justice Policy Research, Institute for |
| Depositing User: | Gill Hunter |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Feb 2017 16:24 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:31 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/18065 |
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