Toward a Trauma-Informed Psychosocial Criminology: A Case Study of Women’s Methamphetamine Use

Feminist criminological scholarship on illegal substances has struggled to explain why some women who use drugs continue to participate in markets that confront them with overwhelming harms, high risk of sexual abuse, violence, and intense gendered stigma. Utilizing a case study drawn from a sample of incarcerated women who used methamphetamine in Missouri, we highlight the role of gendered identifications and emotional dependencies in the processing of trauma and its consequences for engagement in exploitative exchanges. The article is a contribution to a trauma-informed psychosocial criminology that provides a dynamic and holistic explanation of intergenerational trauma and methamphetamine use.