1. Introducing penal cultures and female desistance
2. Gender, penality and desistance in cross-national contexts
3. Researching women’s journey towards desistance in diverse cultures and contexts
4. Mapping the female offender’s journey: Points of departure
5. Penological landscapes and female perspectives: ‘Nordic Exceptionalism’ and ‘Anglophone Excess’
6. The female route out: Barriers, ‘ladders’ and the role of relationality
7. The female route out: Employment, inclusion and participation
8. Concluding thoughts on penal cultures and female desistance
Appendix
Bibliography
Biography
Linnéa Österman is an early career researcher and lecturer at the University of Greenwich. Her research interests revolve around gender and crime, desistance, qualitative comparative criminology, Nordic criminal justice and restorative interventions. Completing her doctorate in Criminology at the University of Surrey in early 2016, Linnéa has been involved in a number of research projects focusing on women’s experiences of justice in various cultures and contexts over the last 10 years. She is a passionate criminologist and a social justice optimist, and dabbles with music-making in her spare time.
"Linnéa Österman's book makes an important contribution to the international literature on desistance. Not only does it focus on women’s experiences of desistance but, more significantly, by comparing the experiences of female desisters in England and Sweden, it highlights the role of broader penal cultures – characterised as ‘Anglophone Excess’ and ‘Nordic Exceptionalism’ – in shaping barriers to desistance and routes out of crime."
– Gill McIvor, Professor of Criminology and Co-Director of the SCCJR, University of Stirling, UK
