The Preliminary Descriptive Model of the Offence Process of Violent Women Offenders

Abstract

The literature reveals two areas of growing concern in regard to the perpetration of violence by women. Firstly, the incidence of women's violence is increasing across jurisdictions. Secondly, that despite their growing numbers our knowledge and understanding of violent women has been greatly hindered by the general paucity of empirical investigation of this marginal population. Using a Grounded Theory qualitative approach, the current research developed a preliminary descriptive model of the offence process of women's violent offending (WVOM). Data was collected in the form of verbal narratives, obtained from 19 violent women offenders, during semi-structured interview. The interview process facilitated the documentation of those cognitive, affective, attributional and behavioural processes underlying the process of violent offending by women as well as an in depth description of early developmental childhood and adolescent experiences. The model constructed provides a temporal description of how violence perpetrated by women unfolds over time, inclusive of their offending behaviour, the mediating influences of both distal and dynamic factors and their interaction. Of critical importance was the somewhat unique and unexpected evidence of women violent offender homogeneity within the current sample, where male violent offenders are noted in the literature as being a distinctly heterogeneous population. In keeping with previous research of this kind, three pathways accommodating individual offenders emerged from the data, however, due to the constraining homogeneous nature of the sample these pathways were conceptualized as emergent trajectories. Three major Level II distal predispositional factors emerged from the data as distinctly contributing to violence perpetrated by women. These included: traumatic childhood experiences occurring within dysfunctional family systems, emotional and self-regulation failure and the inculturation of violence into participant's sense of self at social and cultural levels. Notably then, the ensuing model is distinct as one of dysregulation across domains of self and affect. The implications of the model are discussed in relation to clinical intervention and rehabilitation needs, and future directions for research and theory development. The limitations of the current research are also discussed.