Thwarting the androcentrism of knowledge on criminal desistance by taking women’s criminal justice experiences seriously
This contribution explores the personal and social dynamics associated with the pathways to desistance of eight women who experienced the criminal justice system in French-speaking Switzerland. The women we met taught us that keeping further criminalization at bay, and more broadly reconnecting with a better life, implies freeing themselves from the social expectations imposed upon them in all their socializing environments by virtue of being both a woman and in conflict with the law. In support of their experiences, this contribution invites us to go beyond the individualistic, psychologizing and androcentric perspectives that continue to dominate criminological studies on desistance, in order to take more seriously the structural components that shape these women’s trajectories.