When Survival Becomes a Crime: The Women Punished for Escaping Abuse
When I first began reporting on incarcerated women, I was fascinated by studies that showed that showed that upwards of 70 percent of women in jails and prisons were subjected to intimate partner violence before they were incarcerated.
By Maya OlsonJune 8, 20261 min read
When I first began reporting on incarcerated women, I was fascinated by studies that showed that showed that upwards of 70 percent of women in jails and prisons were subjected to intimate partner violence before they were incarcerated.
But as I covered more stories on the topic, I started to see that, more disturbingly, many women I interviewed had been incarcerated because they responded to violence perpetuated against them.
Again and again in my research, I came upon cases in which a woman claimed that she had acted in self-defense, or had followed orders from an abuser because she didn't want to die, or had protected a loved one — and she was subsequently charged with murder, convicted, and locked away, sometimes for life. This is the little-known phenomenon termed "criminalized survival." I wanted to understand how common it was.
