Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 8-22-2011
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation
Abstract
In this study, qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with 100 formerly incarcerated mothers to explore the relationship between attachment to children and desistance from criminal behavior. Exploratory data analysis revealed that mothers do believe that children play important roles in their desistance, consistent with the tenets of life course theory. However, children were also described as sources of great stress, which may in turn promote criminal behavior. Women also related desistance to reliance on self and a higher power, and to a desire to avoid future involvement with the criminal justice system. The article concludes with a call for more research on women's desistance, and increased consideration of parent–child relationships in corrections policy decision making.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2011.589887
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Michalsen, Venezia, "Mothering as a Life Course Transition: Do Women Go Straight for Their Children?" (2011). Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 138.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/justice-studies-facpubs/138
Published Citation
Michalsen, Venezia. "Mothering as a life course transition: Do women go straight for their children?." Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 50, no. 6 (2011): 349-366.
Included in
Community-Based Learning Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, Family Law Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Health Policy Commons, Health Psychology Commons, Human Factors Psychology Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Other Law Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons