An Nuytiens

Female pathways to crime and prison: Challenging the (US) gendered pathways perspective

Because the gendered pathways perspective was developed and tested primarily in the United States, the applicability of the model in European contexts remains questionable. Also, it is unclear how adult-onset female offenders fit the pathways perspective. In this article we explore the life histories and the pathways to crime and prison of female prisoners in Belgium. Because many participants were late starters, our findings are particularly informative for female adult-onset pathways. These adult-onset pathways show both similarities to and differences from the US gendered pathways perspective. Hence, this pathway might be considered as another gendered pathway to crime and prison, alongside those put forward in mainly US research.

Pathways of Transferred Youth Offenders into Adulthood

In this article, the authors discuss the preliminary results of a Belgian research on 210 young offenders transferred to Adult Court in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The long-term judicial pathways of these youngsters, now aged between 30 and 40, are explored. Drawing on the criminal records and detention records of the sample, judicial pathways into adulthood are charted. The results show that the greater part of the sample is still involved in the criminal justice system. More than 50 per cent were convicted at some point in the last 3 years, and almost a third of the population is imprisoned. With this quite unfavourable picture of transferred offenders’ future pathways, we hope to reopen the discussion about transfer policies in Belgium.