Women Decision-Making and Responsibility-Taking of Criminal Lifestyle: The Israeli Case

Abstract

This study aims to investigate patterns of decision-making and responsibility-taking as opposed to the compulsion process selection of a criminal lifestyle among women in prison. A life story approach and semi-structured interviews sampling 30 Israeli women in prison during their first imprisonment were used. Using a mixed-method, results revealed that most of the participants claimed full or partial self-responsibility for having engaged in a criminal lifestyle or for the offense of which they had been convicted. This figure was consistent when the participants were divided by age of first offense or a history of abuse. The results support the need for an integrated approach explaining women’s criminal paths, including gender-specific as well as gender-neutral factors. The conclusion is that responsibility-taking for a criminal act should be one of the factors in intervention programs for women with delinquent behavior, regardless of whether there is a history of victimization or not.