The study of female crime and an understanding of the stories residing in a women's prison hold multiple meanings for feminist theory. The marginalised domain of female criminality also involves powerful anecdotes on the biases of mainstream criminology. This chapter leverages an understanding of the changing context of Indian society and feminist sensitivities in laying out the stories of women prisoners in India. In bringing out the divergences, dilemmas and ironies of women offenders lives in India, the study re-looks at the categoric and causal fixations of mainstream criminology.

The endeavour of understanding the range of factors and conditions that occasion crime requires a holistic understanding of the act of offence and its relation to cultural or social practices. The stories of women prisoners told in the course of interviews have been used to generate data and deployed as narratives of the journey of women from everyday contexts of confinement to their present context of a designated prison. The ironies of this journey resist getting immured into any categories or being hauled into fmalistic theories.

This chapter begins with the first challenge in studying marginalised populations. In this case it is about women in prison. This is the challenge of representation. Representing women in prison and ‘speaking for them’ continues to be a challenge in feminist research.