This concluding chapter discusses the contribution to knowledge provided by this book and considers the ways in which a feminist, critical approach to understanding coercion, may lead to a more holistic criminological understanding of some co-offending women's pathways into crime. It will particularly focus on the issues with dichotomising agency and coercion and viewing victims and offenders as a binary concept when considering the experiences of coerced women. The chapter will also provide a number of recommendations for criminology, particularly considering the ways in which a more nuanced appreciation of co-offending women's experiences could be gained.

Criminology is a discipline, which was developed and created by white, middle-class men, who wanted to understand the experiences of male offenders (Smart, 1976). Women's experiences have been increasingly acknowledged and explored within criminology, mostly due to the contribution of feminist criminology (Smart, 1976; Heidensohn, 1996). With this in mind, this book contributes to this body of knowledge by considering the social construction and experiences of co-offending women and prioritising their voices and perspectives. It is argued here that utilising a feminist approach to understanding coerced women's experiences and representation leads to a more authentic and nuanced appreciation of such women's perspectives.

This book particularly encourages consideration of the issues with dichotomising experiences of agency and coercion within the context of some co-offending women's experiences. Although some feminist scholars argue that women who offend should be viewed as autonomous individuals choosing to commit crime as a conscious and deliberate act, other scholars have argued that women who offend have different motivations to commit crime, some of which render them less than fully autonomous, and women may be influenced by issues such as personal circumstance, poverty or a coercive and/or abusive relationship (Carlen, 1988; Ballinger, 2000; Richie, 1996). Maher (1997) suggests that women who offend are typically viewed to be either independent agents or as lacking control in relation to their offending behaviour. However, this dichotomisation of agency is a reductionist approach, and does not apply to all female offending behaviour, particularly female co-offending which is characterised by coercion and/or abuse.

It is important to note that it is not the intention of this book to deny the agency of all women who offend, but rather that coercion should be understood as being a distinct and often gendered pathway into crime.