Women as Co‐Offenders: Pathways into Crime and Offending Motivations
| Author | SIOBHAN WEARE,CHARLOTTE BARLOW |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12292 |
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 1. March 2019 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12292
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 86–103
Women as Co-Offenders: Pathways
into Crime and Offending
Motivations
CHARLOTTE BARLOW and SIOBHAN WEARE
Charlotte Barlow is Lecturer in Criminology; Siobhan Weare is Lecturer in
Law, Lancaster University
Abstract: This article reports on a qualitative study in the UK of women as co-offenders,
their pathways into crime and offending motivations. What was found in the analysis of
the women’s narratives was that while co-offending relationships were a central pathway
into offending, this often intersected with other circumstances in the women’s lives, in-
cluding drug addiction, socio-economic circumstances, and ‘significant life events’. These
findings suggest that those working with this cohort of women must recognise the com-
plexities and contexts of co-offending to understand, and accurately represent, women’s
experiences.
Keywords: agency; co-offending; gender; pathways into crime
Despite a growing body of work exploring women’s involvement in crime,
less scholarly consideration has been given to women’s pathways into
crime when they are involved in co-offending. Co-offending is defined
here as the act of committing crime alongside one or more accomplices
(Carrington 2002). Although co-offending has been recognised as an
inherent part of delinquency (Conway and McCord 2002), the existing
criminological literature in this area has tended to focus on juvenile
samples (McGloin et al. 2008; Warr 1996), male offenders (Reiss and
Farrington 1991), or particular crimes, for example, violence (Pettersson
2005). Furthermore, most of the research which has considered female
co-offending has been conducted in the USA and concerns organised
drug-dealing and related violence (see, for example, Welle and Falkin
2000). Consequently, women’s involvement in co-offending as a pathway
into crime is one that has received limited consideration in the existing
literature. Indeed, the focus has been on women offenders more broadly,
or those who commit certain offences (see, for example, Seal 2010; Weare
2013, 2017) and in the USA in particular,the emphasis has been to analyse
the distinct, and often gendered, pathways into crime that women take
(Daly 1994). As a result, co-offending is often written about as an ‘aside’
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 1. March 2019
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 86–103
within the female offending literature, with limited attention given to
the specific ways in which co-offending partnerships can both motivate
women’s offending and act as a pathway into crime. The limited literature
in the area typically focuses on the extent to which such women are forced
or coerced into crime by their male partner/co-offender (Barlow 2016;
Jones 2008) or focuses on the impact of the relationship itself (Welle and
Falkin 2000) on women’s offending.
Research and policy has increasingly considered the ways in which sub-
stance misuse, socio-economic circumstances, and other structural con-
straints, influence women offenders’ pathways into crime (Batchelor 2009;
Corston 2007). However, this research does not consider the influence of
co-offending specifically. Nowhere within current research is considera-
tion given to the potential for multiple factors to overlap in the lives of
co-offending women, a combination of which motivates them to offend.
As such, this article makes a novel contribution to knowledge by crit-
ically considering not only the impact of co-offending relationships on
women’s criminality, but also additional factors which intersect with these
relationships within their lives. We share the results of a research study in-
volving in-depth qualitative interviews with women who have co-offended
in the UK. Analysis of the women’s experiences highlights the complexi-
ties of both their pathways into crime and their continued offending mo-
tivations. While co-offending relationships were central to the women’s
pathways into criminality, other factors, including drug addiction, socio-
economic circumstances, and what we term ‘significant life events’, were
all relevant to the women’s offending motivations. On several occasions,
these factors directly intersected with women’s co-offending relationships,
highlighting both the complexities of their lives, and their choices, some-
thing which many of the women themselves emphasised within their
narratives.
Literature Review
From the 1970s onwards, particularly in the USA, a body of work col-
lectively termed ‘feminist pathways’ research sought to explain how, and
why,women become involved in the criminal justice system (Belknap 2007;
Chesney-Lind and Shelden 2004; Daly 1994; Richie 1996). This research
developed as a result of the pathways literature of the time devoting in-
sufficient attention to female offenders, and concerns raised by feminist
scholars about whether theories developed ‘by men, about men’ could ac-
count for women’s experiences (Daly and Chesney-Lind 1996; Walklate
2001). The feminist pathways research produced compelling narratives of
women offenders’ experiences, and identified key issues and risks that of-
ten characterise women’s pathways into crime and consequential continued
offending motivations. These include the impacts of childhood victimisa-
tion, extreme marginalisation through education and employment issues,
mental health issues and substance abuse, and the impact of relationships,
particularly those with a violent man (Covington 1988; Daly 1994; Gilligan
1982; Richie 1996). While there is some gender overlap in these pathways
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