Women on Parole, Identity Processes, and Primary Desistance
| Author | Merry Morash,Jennifer Cobbina,Marva Goodson,Sandi Smith,Rebecca Stone |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1557085116670004 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
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Article
Feminist Criminology
2018, Vol. 13(4) 382 –403
Women on Parole, Identity
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1557085116670004
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Desistance
Rebecca Stone1, Merry Morash2, Marva Goodson2,
Sandi Smith2, and Jennifer Cobbina2
Abstract
The current study employs a prospective mixed-methods design to examine women
parolees’ identities early in their supervision and the association of their identity
development at that point to their record of subsequent arrests. Guided by narrative
identity theory, we first conduct quantitative analysis of the relationship between
redemption and contamination narratives and subsequent arrests. We then return to
the qualitative interview data to search for additional explanatory themes that shed
further light on women’s identity and desistance from crime. Results indicate that
identity verification from parole officers and others increases women’s self-esteem
and assists them in overcoming barriers to desistance.
Keywords
women’s desistance, women’s reentry, substance abuse, parole, community
corrections
In recent decades, the population of women under correctional supervision has
increased faster than the population of men (Carson & Sabol, 2012; Glaze & Parks,
2012; Minton, 2012). As of 2012, 96,683 women were on parole after release from
prison, and they comprised 11% of the total parole population (Maruschak & Bonczar,
2013). Many women released from prison have subsequent contact with the criminal
justice system. Durose, Cooper, and Snyder (2014) recently estimated that in the 3
years following prison release, 62.9% of women are arrested. These figures clarify that
1University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA
2Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Corresponding Author:
Rebecca Stone, School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 113
Wilder Street, HSSB 445, Lowell, MA 01854, USA.
Email: rebecca_stone@uml.edu
Stone et al.
383
to best support women’s reintegration into their communities, it is crucial to better
understand their desistance from offending in the years soon after release.
Maruna’s (2001) application of narrative identity theory—a social psychological
theory of personality development (McAdams, 2013)—is a well-known explanation
of the connection of identity change to desistance. A key tenet of the theory is that
when individuals describe their lives, they reveal their current stage in identity devel-
opment. For a sample of predominantly male drug or property offenders from
Liverpool, England, Maruna (2001) documented how desisting offenders made sense
of their prior illegal activity in a way that enabled their development of a prosocial
identity, for example, by describing redemption sequences in which negative experi-
ences gave them insight and strength to change and to make positive contributions to
society. In contrast, offenders who continued to break the law described contamination
sequences in which brushes with the law or other negative life circumstances made it
impossible for them to change for the better.
Desistance scholars apart from Maruna have advanced alternative theories of iden-
tity change to explain the internal transformations experienced by offenders (e.g.,
Farrall, 2005; Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002; Paternoster & Bushway,
2009; Rumgay, 2004). These theories differ in the sequencing of steps in identity
change, circumstances that promote or impede change, attention to gender, and the
importance of various influences, but they agree in their depiction of desistance as a
process of identity change from offender to nonoffender.
Given the relatively few desistance scholars who have studied sizable samples of
women (Bachman, Kerrison, Paternoster, Smith, & O’Connell, 2016; Giordano et al.,
2002; R. Stone, 2016), we sought to contribute to the literature in a prospective study
that established the themes that reflected women parolees’ identities early in their
supervision, and that linked their identity development at that point to their record of
arrests in the 36 months after supervision started. King (2013a) identified the initial
period when desistance begins as relatively neglected in theory and research but as
important in its potential implications for designing supports for what he calls pri-
mary desistance. By examining identity change in the primary desistance period, we
sought to shed light on the potential supports that might help women overcome the
challenges of parole. Guided by Maruna’s (2001) theory of desistance, we first identi-
fied themes of redemption and contamination in women’s accounts of early parole,
and we conducted quantitative analysis of the relationship among those themes and
between those themes and subsequent arrests. Then, based on an analysis of qualita-
tive data from the women on parole, we inductively elaborated on the theoretical
explanation of how identity is linked to paroled women’s primary desistance. Through
this inductive process, we revealed the importance of identity support from parole
supervisors and others for increasing women’s self-esteem and helping them to over-
come reentry challenges.
The literature review that follows first considers unique situations and characteris-
tics of women on parole that provide reason to focus on them. It then provides more
detail about theory and research on women offenders’ identity and desistance.
384
Feminist Criminology 13(4)
Literature Review
Women on Parole
Compared with men on parole, women more often have certain types of challenges
and sources of support. They have higher rates of substance dependencies and addic-
tions, mental health problems, trauma and abuse histories, low self-efficacy, neighbor-
hoods lacking prosocial networks and opportunities, and family members who break
the law or who have abused them (e.g., Golder, Higgins, Hall, & Logan, 2014;
Leverentz, 2006; Maidment, 2006; Morash, 2010; O’Brien, 2001; Owen & Bloom,
1995; Richie, 2001; Salisbury & Van Voorhis, 2009; Salisbury, Van Voorhis, &
Spiropoulis, 2009). More than men, women face caregiver obligations and challenges
(e.g., gaining child custody, acting as single parents; Belknap, 2007; Brown & Bloom,
2009). Connections to family and friends who provide instrumental and emotional
support are especially important to women (Leverentz, 2006; O’Brien, 2001; Petersilia,
2003; Simons, Stewart, Gordon, Conger, & Elder, 2002; Van Voorhis, Salisbury,
Wright, & Bauman, 2008). Relationships with children also may support desistance by
providing motivation and promoting a conventional and prosocial identity (Brown &
Bloom, 2009; Giordano et al., 2002; Opsal, 2012; Richie, 2001). Finally, women
appear more likely than men to count probation or parole agents as helpful social net-
work members (Bui & Morash, 2010; Maidment, 2006; Morash, 2010; Skeem,
Louden, Manchak, Vidal, & Haddad, 2009). Overall, the unique stressors and supports
that affect women offenders highlight the importance of research that concentrates on
this group.
Identity Change and Desistance
Relative to the onset and maintenance of criminal offending, desistance from offend-
ing has long been undertheorized. Once conceptualized as a discrete event, desistance
has been reconceptualized as a developmental process (Bushway, Piquero, Mazerolle,
Broidy, & Cauffman, 2001; Bushway, Thornberry, & Krohn, 2003; Fagan, 1989; Laub
& Sampson, 2001). Accordingly, criminologists increasingly consider theories of cog-
nitive transformation (Giordano et al., 2002) or identity change (Farrall, 2005; King,
2013a, 2013b; Maruna, 2001; Paternoster & Bushway, 2009; R. Stone, 2016; Vaughan,
2007) as explanations for desistance. As noted above, these theories agree that desis-
tance is a process whereby individuals stop identifying as offenders and craft alterna-
tive identities. However, the theories disagree on or overlook the role of identity
support from others in desisting offenders’ lives and how this support might buffer
them from the identity challenges presented by their parolee statuses. In general, the
theories connect identity with motivations for behavior, but they vary significantly in
emphasis on sociostructural opportunities to assume new role identities, individual
agency, or the interaction between agency and structure. King (2012) proposed a con-
tinuum on which strongly subjective theories emphasize the role of individual agency
in adopting the new identity and casting off the old; strongly social theories instead
Stone et al.
385
emphasize the limitations of social structure and the restraints imposed on agency by
limited resources and social roles. He described identity theories emphasizing the
interaction between agency and structure as “subjective-social” (King, 2012).
Exemplifying subjective identity theory, in a seminal study, Maruna (2001) found
that participants in his research who successfully desisted from criminal activity had
powerful personal narratives of redemption that helped them make sense of their pasts
and feel in control of their futures. These desisting offenders mined their past experi-
ences for evidence of their ability to be “good” and highlighted these examples in their
re-storying of their identities. By doing so, they...
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