`“Prove me the bam!”: Victimization and agency in the lives of young women who commit violent offences' — Practitioner response 2
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Author | Madeline Petrillo |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550508095924 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Practitioner’s
response
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2008 NAPO Vol 55(3): 289–294
DOI: 10.1177/0264550508095924
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
‘“Prove me the bam!”: Victimization and
agency in the lives of young women who
commit violent offences’ – Practitioner
response 2
Madeline Petrillo, HMPYOI Downview
Abstract This article is a practitioner’s response to Susan Batchelor’s article ‘Prove
me the bam!’: Victimization and agency in the lives of young women who commit
violent offences’, published in Probation Journal (December, 2005). The article
drew on research Susan Batchelor had undertaken at HMPYOI Cornton Vale in
Scotland with 21 young women aged from 16 to 24 years-old who were impris-
oned for violent offences. Susan Batchelor’s findings challenge the notion that
female violence is ‘abnormal’ or ‘bizarre’, suggesting instead that it is a rational
response in lives characterized by multiple disadvantage.
Keywords CARE Programme, ETS, Freedom Programme, victimization, violence,
women prisoners
Introduction
I am a Probation Officer on secondment at HMPYOI Downview, an establishment
for female prisoners in Surrey. I work with the adult women who are subject to
Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), Indeterminate Sentences
for Public Protection (IPPs) and Prolific and other Priority Offenders (PPOs). We
follow a case management model of working which involves the assessment and
sentence planning work with women in the above groups and facilitating their
access to appropriate interventions. I am also involved in three offending behav-
iour programmes; Enhanced Thinking Skills, the Drug Importers’ Group and
Freedom. The vast majority of the women with whom I work have been impris-
oned for violent offences.
289
290 Probation Journal 55(3)
Focus of the research study
The premise for Susan Batchelor’s study is to challenge the characterization of
women who commit violent offences as victims; either of the weaknesses of their
gender (overemotional, irrational, out of control) or of current or past experiences
of abuse (Batchelor, 2005: 361). Batchelor’s research reveals the extent of drug
and alcohol misuse, self harm, feelings of unresolved grief, rage and shame,
childhood experiences of institutional care and abusive relationships among
women who have committed violent offences. Her study contests traditional crim-
inological understandings of female violence as an abnormal emotional reaction.
Batchelor’s conjecture is that the violence committed by the women is in fact a
rational response to the world they inhabit – a world which is hostile and danger-
ous (p. 370). Batchelor concludes that, for this reason, the cognitive behavioural
programmes which are central to rehabilitative efforts with all offenders are
limited. They are intended to ‘correct’ faulty thinking processes but do not address
the wider societal factors that contribute to the women’s offences (p. 371). This
research was of great interest to me as a practitioner working with women who
have committed violent offences as I have found one of the major challenges of
this work is how to recognize the women’s repeated and...
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