Date of Award

9-4-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Criminal Justice

First Advisor

Stacy Moak

Abstract

Although research on female offending has grown in the past few decades, the criminal justice system has remained inadequate in addressing and responding to the needs of women. Researchers have just begun to study the lives of women independently of men to uncover the similarities, and more importantly, differences. The limited research that is available on the life histories of female offenders, particularly female homicide offenders, shows there are events and experiences that play a significant role in the lives of these women. To increase knowledge on the individual factors that lead to female offending, this dissertation sought to incorporate traditional feminist perspectives with life course perspective. In addition to integrating the theories, this dissertation also added an additional element to the understanding of turning points: the individual’s perspective in the analysis of their lives to show that context is fundamental to research in life course criminology. Employing a mixed methods design, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. Results show both individual and group differences for the women in this study. Additionally, this dissertation was able to identify life events and turning points specific to the lives of women and validate the necessary incorporation of perception and attribution to future research with life course perspective.

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