Amanda Burgess-Proctor

Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Crime: Future Directions for Feminist Criminology

More than 30 years after the first scholarship of its kind was produced, feminist studies of crime are more commonplace than ever before. Two recent milestone events—the 20th anniversary of the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Women and Crime and the creation of this journal, the official publication of the division—provide the perfect opportunity to reflect on what lies ahead for feminist criminology. In this article, the author argues that the future of feminist criminology lies in our willingness to embrace a theoretical framework that recognizes multiple, intersecting inequalities. Specifically, the author maintains that to advance an understanding of gender, crime, and justice that achieves universal relevance and is free from the shortcomings of past ways of thinking, feminist criminologists must examine linkages between inequality and crime using an intersectional theoretical framework that is informed by multiracial feminism.

A Summary of Personal Protection Order Statutes in the United States

A systematic analysis of statutes regarding personal protection orders (PPOs) was completed for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia to determine which states are most “victim friendly” in protecting women against domestic violence. Indicators used include compliance with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the relationship between petitioner and respondent, ease of the PPO administrative process, and severity of punishment for violations. Results indicate that most states have PPO legislation that is consistent with VAWA; however, states differ dramatically in accessibility of orders for victims of violence.

Police officer perceptions of intimate partner violence: an analysis of observational data

This article explores police officer perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV) using observational data from police ride-alongs. We performed a qualitative analysis of narrative data from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) to examine officers’ views of IPV as well as whether policing philosophy is related to officers’ attitudes toward IPV. Results indicate that POPN officers expressed problematic views of IPV (including simplification of IPV, victim blaming, patriarchal attitudes toward women, and presumption of victim noncooperation) as well as progressive views of IPV (including recognition of the complexity of IPV, awareness of barriers to leaving, and consideration of IPV as serious and worthy of police intervention). Additionally, our analysis offers tentative support for a relationship between policing philosophy and officers’ attitudes toward IPV. While this study is largely exploratory, we address the implications of our findings both for police practice and training and for future research.

Pathways of Victimization and Resistance: Toward a Feminist Theory of Battered Women’s Help‐Seeking

Although intimate partner abuse has been extensively researched over the last thirty years, battered women’s help‐seeking remains perplexingly undertheorized, particularly within criminology. This analysis aims to offer a corrective by applying the feminist pathways theoretical model—which examines women’s and girls’ offending behaviors in the context of their past victimization experiences—to battered women’s help‐seeking. Data from in‐depth life history interviews with 22 battered women in two states indicate that the women’s childhood victimization experiences informed their adult help‐seeking decisions in meaningful ways. The primary theoretical contribution of this analysis is the identification of specific mechanisms—five help‐seeking inhibitors and three help‐seeking promoters—through which childhood victimization influenced participants’ help‐seeking. Results of this analysis demonstrate the benefit of a feminist pathways theoretical model of battered women’s help‐seeking in order to better understand how pathways of victimization and resistance develop over the course of women’s lives.

Evaluating the Efficacy of Protection Orders for Victims of Domestic Violence

Abstract The purpose of this study is to gauge the efficacy of protection orders for victims of domestic violence. The theoretical basis for this analysis is Johnsons (1995) theory that there exist two distinct forms of domestic violence: “common couple violence,” which consists of low-grade, mild abuse that is equally perpetrated by both men and women, and “patriarchal terrorism,” which involves severe mental and physical abuse that is used primarily by men to control their female partners. Based on Johnsons theory, it is hypothesized that protection orders will be less effective for women who experience patriarchal terrorism than for women who experience common couple violence. The results of this analysis indicate that the primary independent variable, that is, whether a woman experiences common couple violence or patriarchal terrorism, is not a good predictor of protection order violation. However, several secondary independent variables were found to be significant, including victims race and employment status, as well as the couples living arrangements at the time of the protection order.

A Collective Effort to Improve Sociology Students’ Writing Skills

Nationwide, academic sociologists at all types of higher education institutions face the challenge of working to improve students’ writing skills. In this article, we describe a collective effort by a group of faculty members in one undergraduate sociology program to implement several effective writing-improvement strategies. We advocate aiming to improve students’ writing by working together on a united front rather than working in isolation. After explaining the origins of the collective emphasis on writing that emerged in our group and briefly outlining the writing-improvement strategies that we utilize, we use student survey data to reflect on major themes before concluding with a discussion of the merits of our collective approach.

Backfire: lessons learned when the criminal justice system fails help-seeking battered women

In this analysis I use data from interviews with 22 battered women in two states to explore their criminal justice help-seeking experiences. First, I examine participants’ overwhelmingly negative experiences with three criminal justice help-seeking strategies: calling the police, pursuing prosecution of their abusers, and obtaining protection orders. Next, I contextualize these negative experiences by identifying two sources of conflict between help-seeking battered women and the criminal justice system: perception incompatibility and goal incompatibility. Here I also use the narrative data to evaluate women’s sense that use of the criminal justice system ‘backfired’ on them, and identify the consequences of this backfire for disrupting womens help-seeking pathways. I also present, as a counterpoint, womens uniformly positive experiences with two non-criminal justice resources: shelter and support groups services. Finally, I use these findings to identify specific lessons that can be learned to improve the overall criminal justice response to help-seeking battered women.

Comparing the Effects of Maternal and Paternal Incarceration on Adult Daughters’ and Sons’ Criminal Justice System Involvement: A Gendered Pathways Analysis

This analysis compares the effects of maternal and paternal incarceration on adult daughters’ and sons’ criminal justice system (CJS) involvement. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) are used to examine differences by parent and offspring sex in the effect of parental incarceration on respondents’ self-reported arrest, conviction, and incarceration after age 18 (N = 15,587). Net of controls, both maternal and paternal incarceration significantly increase log odds of adult offspring CJS involvement. This effect is especially pronounced for same-sex parent–child dyads, suggesting that the salience of parental incarceration for adult offending outcomes is gendered. In addition, intimate partner abuse and running away are significant predictors of adult CJS involvement for women, but not for men. The results suggest the importance of examining parental incarceration using a gendered, developmental framework such as gendered pathways, as well as the need for gender-responsive correctional programming.

College Women’s Perceptions of and Inclination to Use Campus Sexual Assault Resources Comparing the Views of Students With and Without Sexual Victimization Histories

The purpose of this study is to explore whether college women’s perceptions of and inclination to use campus sexual assault resources vary as a function of their sexual victimization histories. First, using data from the full sample of female undergraduate students selected from the psychology subject pool (N = 247), we performed t-tests to analyze whether perceptions of sexual assault as a problem on campus, knowledge of and confidence in campus sexual assault resources, and likelihood of attending a university sexual assault self-defense course differed for victims and nonvictims. Victims indicated significantly less confidence in campus resources and significantly less interest in attending the self-defense course than nonvictims. Second, using data from a subsample of participants (n = 57) who reported being unlikely to attend the self-defense course, we performed a qualitative analysis of the open-ended responses. Student-reported reasons for not attending the self-defense course were categorized into instrumental barriers such as time and schedule constraints and perceptual barriers such as belief that the self-defense course was unnecessary, with similar response patterns emerging for victims and nonvictims. The results underscore the need for colleges and universities to improve sexual assault service provision for students, especially women with sexual victimization histories.

Factors Related to Co-Offending and Coerced Offending Among Female Sex Offenders: The Role of Childhood and Adult Trauma Histories

Research suggests two important domains of womens sexual offending: co-offending, in which additional perpetrators are present with the woman during the crime, and coerced offending, in which the woman feels pressured by someone else to commit the crime. This exploratory analysis examines these 2 domains using self-report data from 60 incarcerated female sex offenders (FSOs) in a Midwestern state. In addition to indicating whether a co-offender was present and whether they felt pressure to commit the sex offense for which they were incarcerated, participants provided demographic information about themselves, the victim, and the offense, as well as about their own trauma, substance abuse, and mental illness histories. Results indicate that childhood and adult trauma histories are related to both co-offending and coerced offending among FSOs. Implications for theory, policy and practice, and future research are discussed.