NAPD 2024 Women's Virtual Conference

For the last several decades, women’s incarceration has boomed, growing at a rate double that of men. There is an urgency right now to understand the pathways to women’s incarceration, including their criminalization for acts taken in response to gender-based violence (GBV.) There is also a vibrant new movement to rectify the injustice faced by many of these prisoners, as evidenced through Second Chance and other laws.

This presentation will explore basic concepts related to criminalized survivors and their unique challenges in the criminal legal system. Topics will include, for example, social science findings relevant to defending criminalized survivors and their divergent responses to trauma and abuse; common misconceptions that interfere with identifying and effectively representing criminalized survivors; how defense teams can better identify survivor-defendants and communicate with them; systemic challenges present in cases involving criminalized survivors, such as gender bias, skepticism of accounts of abuse, and pervasive misconceptions about victims, their experiences, and the relevance of that information to the defense. This presentation will also discuss recent second chance laws and other potential avenues for relief.