Introduction

This chapter will begin by exploring women's pathways into crime, before specifically considering coercion as a pathway into crime for female co-offenders. It will critically discuss concepts such as agency and ‘choice’ within the context of such relationships/co-offending partnerships. The chapter will conclude with a critical overview of criminology's current engagement with and understanding of coerced women.

Pathways into crime for women offenders

Literature exploring pathways into crime has been widely criticised for devoting insufficient attention to female offenders. Feminist scholars in particular question whether theories developed by men about men can account for women's experiences (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). However, from the 1970s onwards, a body of research collectively termed ‘feminist pathways’ research sought to explain why and how women become entrenched in the criminal justice system (Belknap, 2007). This body of work produced compelling narratives of women offenders and identified key issues, risks and experiences characterising women's pathways into crime. Significantly, these factors appeared to be qualitatively different to those of male offenders (for example, Belknap, 2007; Chesney-Lind and Shelden, 2004; Daly, 1994; Richie, 1996).

Pathways into crime for women offenders identified within this body of research includes childhood victimisation, which proposes causal links between serious child abuse, mental health issues and female offending behaviour (Covington, 1988; Daly, 1994). In addition, the extreme marginalisation pathway identified a pattern of poverty, homelessness and educational issues and emphasised the significance of the intersection of race, gender and class among certain women offenders (Richie, 1996). Perhaps most pertinent to this book is the identification of a relational pathway, which identified a combination of dysfunctional relationships, adult victimisation and in some instances substance abuse as playing a central role in women's offending decisions and behaviour (Gilligan, 1982).

Daly's (1994) research most strongly encapsulates the feminist pathways perspective and she identified five pathways into crime for women. She labelled each identified pathway as follows: (a) street women – this usually involved women or girls escaping abuse and violence, entering street life and often engaging in sex work, drugs and theft to survive; (b) drug-connected women – this involved women using and trafficking drugs, often with intimate partners or family members;