Citation

Kruttschnitt C, Carbone‐lopez K. Criminology 2006; 44(2): 321-352.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, American Society of Criminology)

DOI

10.1111/j.1745-9125.2006.00051.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This research builds on the recent scholarship that questions the anti-agentic depictions of women's acts of violence. We inductively examine women's narratives of their violence to illuminate the diversity of motivations that appear to lie behind that violence. The narratives are drawn from a racially diverse sample of 205 women who were incarcerated in the Hennepin County Adult Detention Facility (Minneapolis, Minnesota). A life events calendar was used to assess women's involvement as both victims and offenders in violent crimes over the 36 months prior to their incarceration. We found that sixty-six women provided information on 106 incidents of violence. Further, given the dominant theoretical framework in studying women's offending, we assess whether particular types of violent incidents are more likely to involve a partner as opposed to someone who is not a partner (friend, acquaintance, or stranger). Our contextualization of these events also includes an examination of the demographic and situational correlates of the incidents. Our findings reveal that women's reasons for engaging in violence are wide-ranging and that we need not essentialize stereotypic views of gender in the study of violence.