The Recursive Relationship Between Substance Abuse, Prostitution, and Incarceration: Voices From a Long-Term Cohort of Women

• NCJ Number: 254156
• Author(s): Ronet Bachman; Samantha Rodriguez; Erin M. Kerrison; Chrysanthi Leon
• Date Published: 2019
• Length: 19 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2008-IJ-CX-0017
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description
• Award: ROADS DIVERGE: LONG-TERM PATTERNS OF RELAPSE, RECIDIVISM AND DESISTANCE FOR A RE-ENTRY COHORT

Annotation

Relying on interview data from a cohort of drug-involved women originally released from prison in the 1990s and interviewed between 2010 and 2011, this study examined the role that prostitution played in their lives.

Abstract

These women were arrested an average of 16 times in their lives, and their criminal records prevented them from obtaining legitimate employment, which resulted in nearly half of the sample engaging in "survival prostitution." Consistent with the Identity Theory of Desistance, narratives from those who successfully exited prostitution revealed the cognitive transformations that began when they envisioned their "feared self" (e.g. dying on the street). This research illuminates the complexities inherent in the desistance process for a contemporary sample of drug-involved adult women entrenched within the criminal justice system. (publisher abstract modified)