Patriarchy as a contextual and gendered pathway to crime: a qualitative study of Iranian women offenders

Scholars have already presented different pathways to crime for males and females. We need more investigation on these pathways especially for women. Therefore, this study aims at studying Iranian female offenders via a qualitative method. The Grounded Theory methodology was used to analyze the life history of the female offenders. Participants include 23 incarcerated women. Four pathways emerged during categorizing the data: family as the facilitator of the crime; addiction; escape; exclusion and lack of support. Finally, it was concluded that in spite of the similarity between these four neutral pathways, there is a contextual and gendered pathway, i.e. patriarchy. Although the findings of the present study are similar to Street Women scenario (Daly in Rev Law Women’s Stud 2:11–52, 1992; Miller in Street women. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986), there can be seen a latent mechanism at the background of this scenario, i.e. the shade of a patriarch system with its special power relations.