Women, Stigma, and Desistance from Crime: Precarious Identities in the Transition to Adulthood

How do young women negotiate their identity in the shadow of a criminal past? What expectations can these women have and what are their constraints in embracing change and reform?

In this new book, Gilly Sharpe returns to the group of women interviewed in her bestselling book Offending Girls, to ask these questions and more. Building on a range of interviews with young female offenders who have experienced a highly punitive climate in youth justice and welfare policy, this book analyses these vivid personal accounts of stigma, motherhood, addiction and examines the gendered transition from youth criminality into adulthood.