Women and Violent Crime: Breaking Stereotypes

Transcript of conversation with Dr Kathryn Whiteley published 7 January 2026

Transcript prepared by JAS Virtual Services.

You can watch this conversation here or listen here.

Today we are joined by internationally acclaimed feminist criminologist – consultant, academic, documentary producer and podcast host and co-producer, Dr Kathryn Whiteley. Her research focuses on gender and crime, specifically women who commit violent crimes and she is currently writing a book which shares life stories of women incarcerated for life in the United States. Hi, Kathryn, good to see you again. Welcome.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:00:28]:

Thank you. Good to see you. And also, David, lovely to see you.

David Jones [00:00:33]:

Well, hello indeed, Kathryn, very nice to meet you from so far away in Pennsylvania. Kathryn, what made you so curious about women who commit such serious crimes?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:00:46]:

Lovely question to start with. Many years ago, because possibly you recognise the accent, many years ago in Australia, when I was deciding on a PhD, what realm should I do a PhD on? And I was always fascinated about women and crime or women and criminality. And at that stage it was like, if I want to really be sure or certain that I’m going to do a PhD about women and criminality, maybe I need to do some volunteer work first. So, I do share that I started doing some volunteer work in Brisbane, Australia, because that’s where I’m from, and then found, after six straight months of immersing myself as a volunteer, not knowing really what to do and what to anticipate, I befriended a couple of women and one in particular was a young, very young woman that had just been released from prison and it was to do with intimate partner homicide. So I was very intrigued about her life and for what she wanted to share because she was just being released and she was traumatised coming out of the system and still very young. And we got talking for the short period of time I got to know her and I thought, my gosh, you know, I don’t know much at all about this realm. And from my little bit of background or my research into this, nor do many others.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:02:04]:

So this young lady, and she’s a woman now, well and truly a woman now, she helped me to decide which path and what specific research I was going to follow through with.

David Jones [00:02:16]:

Thank you. I note just in passing, Kathryn, that you began your course really by volunteering, as I did. And I think in the interviews that we’ve conducted, so many people do begin their careers by volunteering.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:02:33]:

I think that’s really key. Again, it’s a great question to start with, because I’ve never gone into a prison system and I’m going to say it’s always blind, you never know what to anticipate. But having that and of course, many years later, now that I’m in the United States and I’ve been here for almost 20 years, one of the first things I did when I touched down here in the United States as a visiting professor was like, wow, I’ve got to do some volunteer work.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:03:01]:

I’ve got to understand the environment, geographical, but also the institution and the women inside the institution. And if I want to follow that path here in the United States. So, of course, I am a prison society official visitor for Pennsylvania. And that, again, thrust me into the deep end and just made me understand or acknowledge this is really where I wanted to be. So those two pieces, as you mentioned, David, those two pieces that I’ve done of volunteer work, so important and really have made my research agenda whole.

David Jones [00:03:34]:

Thank you very much. So you studied incarcerated women in Australia, the United States of America, and Ireland. Did you notice any differences in women’s experiences?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:03:47]:

There are many. I’ll start with by saying that what I’ve come across over the years. Now I’ve interviewed over 100 women between Australia, United States, and Ireland, that each woman, okay, is unique. So I don’t universalise that, and I think we do as a society that one size fits all. If it’s a crime of murder, then all the women are the same. So when we take a little bit of a step back, I found starting my research in Australia, and I was a bit greened, let me tell you, I was a little bit green there. My agenda then was to understand not just the women’s stories, but also about their motivation and the crime, the criminality piece. But it was those women there that decided to tell me that if you need to understand the crime and motivation, you need to learn more about us. So that changed my train of thought.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:04:40]:

But also at the same time, when you ask about differences, what I observed there compared to the United States and then Ireland, it is extreme because I think we have to understand first, sentencing. The length of sentencing is so different. I didn’t realise that coming to the United States, again, it’s that one size fits all one. You know what I mean? It’s all life is life. But because I only focus on women that are incarcerated for violent crimes, specifically murder, and of course, sexual offending, this cohort, which is small, but in Australia, life and the length of life sentences differs from what it does here in the United States and also in Ireland. So when we think about the impact or the differences, we have to begin with, what is a life sentence for a woman in Australia? And my experience was 23 years. Two women out of the cohort I interviewed there all those years ago, they served 23 years. That was their life sentence.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:05:45]:

And they maxed out, as they say there, coming to the United States. And again, I’m just touching on sentencing because that impacts a woman, her life of incarceration coming to the United States and a little bit green, you know, behind the ears and thinking about, well, you know, a life, 23, 25 years. But most of my work at this moment is in Pennsylvania and in Texas. Now, life there is life first and second degree, or capital punishment. And life without parole means either the death penalty or never, ever to be released. Okay? And then there is second degree, which can be life with parole, which means a woman may have to serve maybe 25, well, 35 years on average for her life sentence. Now when you talk about a comparison of that, then I go to Ireland and I hear the women say to me, well, I have got nothing to complain about. I’ll be out in 16 years or 18 years.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:06:47]:

So that sentence to begin with, changes the dynamics and the experience of each woman. Because I always think about the women in Ireland. In Australia, those women knew that they were going to be released one day. Where I work with a larger cohort of women, particularly here in Pennsylvania. And these women, 50% of the larger cohort of women inside for murder, they’re going to die inside the prison system. So the sentencing is so key. We also looked at, well, what I noticed when in Australia, very much the therapeutic model. Now, people agree to disagree, but I’m only comparing approximately with here in the United States, you walk into a prison environment, there are like small homes within a prison, you know, shall we say perimeters in the United States, often it’s referred to by the women.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:07:41]:

It’s a campus, like a college campus. Okay, so we don’t have these smaller houses, which in some way, from a therapeutic approach, is like living in your own home, a one or two bedroom home. But here in the United States, that is very, very rare. So the environment is very different. And that also impacts the women, what access they have. When I visited Ireland and Dublin in Ireland, which was wonderful, I didn’t realise, and they have a whole section, but the women have individual rooms, they have their showers, they have their toilets. Now, that’s not common, literally, in the United States, but I always remember too that you have a very small cohort of women incarcerated for murder in Ireland and also just a bit bigger in Australia. But in the United States, you know, I work with one group of women.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:08:37]:

There’s 250 odd women in one prison serving a life sentence that’s just in one state prison here. So again, the length of the sentence is important. Also acknowledging the treatment. And I saw pieces of that with my experience that again, access to, shall we say, mental health, it does vary because again, we are looking at larger cohorts here in the United States compared to some of the smaller facilities in other countries. There’s much more to elaborate on. But I just wanted to start with that sentencing because some women really know they’re going to be released and they aim for that. Others realise this is as good as it’s going to get and I’m going to die in here. So that, as I said, shares or determines how their lives are going to be inside.

David Jones [00:09:26]:

Kathryn, you have mentioned now the length of sentences. Have you noticed any difference in the kinds of or the levels of hope which women experience in these different settings?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:09:39]:

Absolutely. Faith has a lot to do with it. And again, I’m going to reiterate because I’ve spent nearly 20 years here in the United States working with women inside faith community, if it’s inside the prison and inside the actual prison environment, resilience. But again, I’m going to go back and talk about a little bit here to understand this better is that if you have, which I’ve worked with, if you have a 15 or 16 year old that is incarcerated as an adult, that determines again, how or what happens, her, shall we say, life, what she experiences in that prison system, is she going to be educated there to finish her GED, which we say here or senior or year 12. When you ask about that, I just wanted to share that I have young girls or young women, they’re teenagers and they’re going to serve out 35 years compared to a woman that may be in her early 60s and she’s going to serve the rest of the time. So, you know, if you’re going into a prison system, say here in the United states and you’re 15 or 16, what do you long for? What do you hope? How do you get up? How do you become resilient? You know, again, compared to a woman in her 40s or 50s or 60s or even in her 70s incarcerated here, it’s this faith. A lot of the women, the longer that they are incarcerated, again, I’m coming back to the United States because the longevity of their incarceration, many turn to faith or spirituality or Christianity.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:11:15]:

That’s something that they will share no matter what belief system we have, it’s very personal. Forming pseudonym families around them is also again, here in the United States. Many will have a mother and a father or a brother and a sister. They’ll talk about that or they’ll be a mother to many. That’s that self purpose, that’s that my identity. I can’t be the mother or the woman outside, but that also preserves my motherhood. So again, you know, I have many different answers for that, but I’m not sure how much more you’d like to know because there is so much more to unpack there. But again, I go back to the difference of ages. I do share too, about a woman that is experiencing sentencing, no matter the age that they enter the prison system here in the United States. Re-entry is very important. But just think about it. Most of these women are not going to re-enter society and abandonment of family. And I see that so much the older the women are incarcerated here in the United States. And it would be across the board too.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:12:24]:

The tragedy is that the families start to abandon them. The loved ones or the friends are on the outside, you know, die, grow older, go away. So that inner strength. How do they get up every day? How do they, you know, and I ask that in my research, I ask them to share what does a day look like in your life? Or how do you get up in the morning knowing that you may never leave or you’re going to serve at least 35 years here? So inner strength and I think support from many people, not just inside, on the outside, really helps. But they are abandoned. The longer they’re incarcerated, the women are abandoned.

Naomi Murphy [00:13:08]:

Can I just ask you, Kathryn, about the numbers? Because I was quite shocked by the numbers. And is that a consequence of the fact that they stayed in prison for longer? Is the murder rate much higher for women in America? What explains the difference?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:13:23]:

Very good question. Thank you. So on average, it is 10% on average, women commit murder in westernised countries. It can go up as far as 13% here in the United States. But what we do have is a sentencing system that is, shall we say, an aging population when you look at that. So the sentencing doesn’t change. The population grows older and more women are coming through the system. The two prisons that I enter here in Pennsylvania, and they are state prisons and I would like to share if that’s okay, again, this understanding about differing criminal justice systems. We have county jails here, which is a bit like a remand or probation centre or a holding place.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:14:13]:

So we have county jails which can house up to 5, 600, 700,000 plus people. I’m saying generally male and females incarcerated. So you will stay in a county jail while the sentencing is going through. You’ve been arrested and convicted, but you’re waiting for that sentencing or the finalisation of your sentence. You may stay in a jail, a County jail, for up to two years, two and a half years, not supposed to be three years, but that can happen.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:14:42]:

Then when the sentencing happens, you are sent to a state prison. And this is where we have the larger numbers, a state prison or a federal. But state prison is basically the state prisons around the United States. And they have the largest cohort, shall we say, of incarcerated populations. So saying that in Pennsylvania, the two prisons that I go into, one may max out at 1200 women, another can be up to 1500 women. So in those two prisons I may see, you know, 50 or 60 women incarcerated for murder. And that’s not the maximum. So it is a very different system.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:15:21]:

We are aging population, especially here in the United States, because the sentences are so long. That’s probably why.

Naomi Murphy [00:15:30]:

And can I also just ask what were the research questions that you were seeking to answer when you started your research?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:15:38]:

Lovely, thank you. At first I had no idea, except I was going motivation and crime or criminality. But what I found is that when I approach a woman, my goal is to understand her pathways to criminality. So that’s my, you could say it’s not a theory, but my theoretical approach is understanding their pathway to crime. And then once they’re inside, particularly the long to lifers, I want to know about their life and what is happening to them whilst incarcerated. So the questions I often begin with is that talk to me about your childhood. Let’s go back to as far as you possibly can and share with me what was it like growing up who was in your family? So I go back with the woman, we retrace as much as she wishes to share. And that’s something I wanted to note too, is that I’m not an aggressive interviewer.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:16:32]:

I may be a tad, when I first started out, very green. As I keep saying that over the years I’ve realised that, you know, asking questions particularly about their childhood and then real and then understanding many of them have been traumatised in their childhood which impacted where they are today. So I go back through and I ask them as many questions about their childhood, their education, where they lived, who did they love to hang out with? Who was their favourite person? And so I really ask them to delve as far as they feel comfortable back into their childhood. Then I go through their teenage years. Now, it’s a little bit different if a young lady is incarcerated when she’s a teenager.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:17:17]:

But I go back through that, and then I ask them, and this is really important, what was happening to you prior to your crime? What was going on with you at that stage or that month or that year prior to that particular crime? And then we digress, or we go back and look at how is that, shall we say, affiliated with or the understanding as to how they got there?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:17:44]:

The other piece is I do not ask about their crime. Although women are often very obliging. They will come forth and some of them want to talk a little bit about the criminality. But I think that’s really important. That’s what makes my research different over all these years. With this cohort of women, I don’t focus on the crime. I’m really not interested about the crime. But if they wish to come forth and share anything about that, I certainly embrace that. Then I follow through.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:18:15]:

Again, this is not aggressiveness. It’s just being very natural and having more like a conversation with the women. Talk to me about what it was like to be apprehended? What was it like going through the sentencing process for you? What was the media portrayal of you? If you can recall going back all those years ago and then arriving at the prison? And then we follow through from there, you know, going through classification, being isolated. Not just from loved ones on the outside, but also from people around you. So there are many in depth, and I always share that. My questioning is intense. It is in depth, but it also has that humane aspect, too. Okay. I’m not not wanting to have every woman share the same story and be flippant about it. This is their personal story, and it’s unique to them. I do get asked, could I share that? Sometimes I’ll be asked by people once they hear what I do well, how can you trust what she said? And, you know, all I can share back or say back to them is that at that time, when I spoke to that woman or that young woman or older woman, whoever it may be, that was her line of truth. And that’s what I write about.

David Jones [00:19:28]:

Thank you, Kathryn. Now, you’ve already told us a lot, actually, but can you say from your research, what are the main things that you’ve discovered?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:19:40]:

Okay, from my research. Okay, I’ll start with ethics and the approach to conducting this form of research. Now, first, we must understand this is a very vulnerable population. Sensitivity, confidentiality is really key here. I start with how I approach my application. Whilst in an academic institution, there’s always that institutional review board that are very rigorous because I’m asking very personal questions and most of the time, all of the time, literally, it’s the first time I’ve met a woman, so I’m going down that path. So getting through that educational, academic, institutional review board is one process. Then you have to look at the challenges of if that’s accepted, then you submit to either Department of Corrections or the criminal justice system, depending on what the agency is called, from country to country.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:20:34]:

It does differ. Now, that is rigorous, so you may get calls, you have rewrites. Particularly scrutinised are the questions because again, let’s face it, as we understand is that any correctional environment, their role is to, well, shall we say, manage, look after many of these women that are very vulnerable in, shall we say in your interviews. So what I found is that going through this process, some rewrites for sure, but key is the acceptance of my questions being approved. And then that can take anywhere from six to 12 months, 18 months. It has taken me up to 18 months. And there’ll be some researchers that are like, I can’t waste that much time. I haven’t got that time.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:21:21]:

But I’ve focused so much on this area of research. I have time, I’ve made time. And it’s frustrating and it’s challenging, but because I become the student again, rewrites and changes and acknowledges, but over 20 years, I think I have a comfortable approach of knowing how to successfully now work with the system, the correctional system or the criminal justice system. But then again, once I’m inside, you could say that the challenges begin with who you’re working closely with in the administration or in administrative role. So I take a step back and think, well, once the application is going through, who is key, administrator or administration.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:22:04]:

That I need to get out of my comfort zone, get away from my desk, make an appointment to go and see them or meet and greet somehow so that they can actually meet me before my research is undertaken. So that’s, I mean, there’s so much behind the scenes. It’s all about relationship building. And that’s even before I’ve entered the prison systems. I’ve done that in Australia, I did that in Ireland. I reached out to the wonderful governor. She’s no longer a Governor there and visited and had conversation. And so it’s not always easy to do that.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:22:36]:

But if you’re serious about this and focusing on this important cohort of women, you really need to build an authentic professional relationship with the people in the facilities first before you then start with the women. So I’m not sure, Naomi, if I answered that, but there’s so much to unpack.

David Jones [00:22:55]:

So, what have been your main findings then?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:22:59]:

Okay, so the main findings, certainly, as I think we all anticipate, high ACE scores, adverse childhood experiences, definitely with women 75 to 80%. But again, we understand that that is the risk factor. Okay, so that is something across the board, across the three countries that I have worked in. Something else I’ve understood is how faith, and again, it doesn’t mean a certain traditional religion, but how, you know, spirituality, Christianity, seems the longer, again, the women are incarcerated, they turn to a particular faith. I have looked at or understand women that have been incarcerated, that have had children. And the tragedy is we seem to focus a lot on younger women that have children and they’re incarcerated. What I do is I ask women, what is it like to be a mother? You’ve been incarcerated for 20, 30, some even 40 years, and hear their story of sadness, of how they, shall we say, work through again.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:24:05]:

I go back to the word abandonment. So motherhood is something, because many women, even to this day, no matter what their crime, their identity is motherhood, often it comes up as motherhood first. Okay, so that abandonment, that being that mother. And you know what’s really disheartening, and I have to share this with you, is when you hear women talk about being a mother, a wonderful mother, and they’ve been in the system here in the United States for 20 or 30 years plus, and then they’ll make these excuses of why they don’t have visits. That’s really sad. And I’ll ask the question, well, how far are your family or friends? Oh, they’re an hour away. They’re a couple hours away.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:24:47]:

Haven’t seen them in a while. Haven’t seen them in a long time. But sometimes I’ll get a phone call and you just, your heart drops. I mean, it saddens me. That piece is key to their overall identity, but it dwindles with time. But they hang on. They hold on.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:25:04]:

So that’s something as well. Also understanding that not all women that are incarcerated are victims. And this is something I’ve spoken about previously because I am a feminist criminologist. My goal, and I have to share this, has never been to set out to focus on women always being the victims. I’ve never done that. But what I have done is shed light on, shall we say, the large or larger amount of women that have been victimised, that have been traumatised. But I also will speak up about women, and it’s usually about a 30% of the cohort of over 100 women or so that I’ve interviewed, not even talking about women that I actually associate with beyond the interviews. And you will find there’s about 30% of these women that will say, I wasn’t a victim.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:25:57]:

I have remorse, but I was never victimised. I had a good life. I had a, you know, I have a PhD, I have an education. I come from a financial background. So I think I really try to present cases of all women. They’re not all, shall we say, victims. They’re not all just offenders. They can be both victim and offender, particularly if the trauma, shall we say, has been most of their life, how they’ve succumbed to that most of their life.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:26:30]:

But I think that sometimes I will automatically have people say to me of feminist criminologist, the victimisation is always a conversation. And I’ll say, no, not all these women I meet have been victimised as perpetrators. So it’s a very fascinating. There are so many other issues too, you know, substance use disorders. Absolutely. Many of the women, 60% plus, that is the disorder, shall we say, substance use disorder is what played into their crime. Alcohol, substances, you know, so again, there’s so many things we could delve into.

David Jones [00:27:06]:

Thank you. I keep wanting to ask you more questions, Kathryn, but before we go on, could you just clarify for people what you mean by when you say you’re a feminist criminologist or feminist psychologist.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:27:20]:

Well, feminist criminologist. So what I do, you know, as a criminologist, you’re always interested in the motivation, the criminality piece, you know, the time, the motivation. Whereas as you understand, the psychological piece is, well, as focused on the mind. Even though I’m not a psychologist, sometimes I feel I am because that’s what I delved more into. So as a feminist criminologist, really all it means, well, not all it means, it’s very important. What I do is represent women that commit crimes.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:27:49]:

Okay? So I start with that. I also focus on the pathways. I focus on theories that focus on women that commit crimes. Okay? So that feminism is really about understanding women. In my case, violent women. The why, the how, the what and why they committed the crimes. So that’s really the feminist piece in there, because I don’t work with males. I don’t focus on that realm.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:28:13]:

And if I was to share that I’m a criminologist, you would probably say, well, what area in what realm? So that’s what it is. I focus on women that commit crime. But even for me, more specifically, women that commit violent crimes.

Naomi Murphy [00:28:26]:

Kathryn, do you ever encounter hostility to the idea that you’re a feminist criminologist, but you’re studying women as perpetrators rather than victims? Because, as you said, there is a tendency to assume that women only end up in prison because they’re victims and a sort of downplaying of some of that aggressive behaviour at times?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:28:46]:

Naomi? Absolutely. I think, you know, a third of the people I meet would go down that path and say, well, how could you women have been victimised? But the proof, I’m going to say is what I do, the proof is hearing it from the women themselves. So I think over 20 years or so, I’ve grown to be humble, and I just, I go with the flow. I share. The thing is, I share what the women share. So it’s not, you know, Dr. Whiteley’s research that she’s got this information and she skewed it or she’s changed it? No, I share what the women tell me and when.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:29:20]:

How can you argue with that if that’s their truth to say, well, look, you know, they’re all victims. No. Well, some women have told me they are not that 30% or so have said they were not victims. So, yes, I have. I’ve had pushback. And I will share this, too. I’ve had pushback years ago when I wanted to commence my PhD because the pushback was going back over two decades ago. Well, why would we really want to research this small cohort, 10%, not even then, this cohort of women, they’re bad, they’re mad, you know, they’re evil.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:29:54]:

Why do we need to waste our time, waste our resources on allowing you to come in and interview this cohort of women so along the way? But you know what? I embrace a discussion. And, you know, as I said, well, I hear it from the women, and this is what they tell me. But, yes, there has been some. But I think that just comes part and parcel with what I do. Thank you for asking that, Naomi.

David Jones [00:30:17]:

Thank you. So, as you know, we’ve previously talked with Anna Motz who works with female offenders in prison. So it comes to mind to perhaps try and find out from you, and you’ve touched upon this to some extent already, I think. But how do you manage to help people to open up to you?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:30:41]:

Thank you. Thanks, David. It takes time. So other than the process of entering the prison system, there is, what I try to do is anything I’m going to do or write, I’ll take a step back. When I interview a woman for the first time, I embrace the opportunity. I try in that short period of time to make her feel as welcome, as comfortable as possible. I attempt with my body language and with what I’m saying that not to feel that I’m interrogating this woman or I’m, you know, interviewing this woman so intensely that she is feeling threatened.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:31:22]:

I believe what I do is that when I first meet a woman, I try to push the interview aside, sit for a few minutes, get to know her a little bit. Now, it doesn’t mean that we love each other, like each other, whichever, but I try to allow her to have her time in her space. Because when I do interview, and some people don’t realise this, I don’t have an officer in the room with me. The officers are down the hallway or wherever. This is a one on one with her and so at that moment, I try to be as authentic and just not be hard and pressured. And I know we’re always on the time frame, but just to hear about her. So I start that conversation.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:32:06]:

And most of the women, nearly all the women, as I’ve said, this is their first time sitting down. A woman that they know is a researcher, you know, what’s she going to ask? And often those women are so nervous, they’re uncomfortable, they don’t know. They’ll even bring pads, pieces of paper and pens in with questions and answers. I’m saying, and I’ll say, just pop that aside, let’s just have a chat. So that very first interview, or the beginning of that first interview or conversation, most important to put a woman at ease, no matter how old they are, you know, and they’re all so different. So I try that. But then all the way through, as I’m asking the questions, I try not to go number one, question one, question two, question three, I try to have a break, have a chat, have a bit of a laugh, let them see and learn a little bit about me. And I think that’s really important too.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:32:59]:

I know we have boundaries, as we understand, no doubt as clinicians there are boundaries of what you do share and what you don’t. But I think I come back to being who you are, but also sharing a little bit about yourself and then you continue to progress and the woman doesn’t feel as threatened. Now it might take a second or third interview, which often I do. I do at least two interviews, 60 to 90 minute interviews. I may go back for a third and by that time you find the second or third. If they wish to come back, it’s like a relief for them and that starts to build a little bit of, shall we say, trust. Now trust is a very broad term because to your face they may say they trust you or you might feel that it could be interpreted differently. But I’ve got to say I have not really found, I mean, there are awkward moments, but I’ve just embraced these opportunity women from all walks of life.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:33:54]:

And I think that’s really key to having the women open up. But it doesn’t stop there with me. And as I’ve, you know, as I will share, I’m very old fashioned this way. I follow up with these women after I’ve interviewed them. I’ve come away with the data or their information and I do transcribe myself. It’s a long process, but I personally transcribe because I get to know the women even more if I’m personally taking pieces of information because I’m recognising my behaviour too. So that adds to the completion of their story. But I also follow up with the old fashioned letter writing card sending.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:34:33]:

So these women, again, it might be once a couple of years I’ll send a letter, how’s it going? And I get it could be one line, it could be several pages, oh, great to hear from you. Or how’s the book? Or how’s your research going? And I always, I carry that with me and I share that. I’ve travelled back to Australia and I’ve travelled a couple of times back to Ireland and also here in the United States to visit the women that I originally set out to interview. So I go beyond, I think, sometimes what many of us may interpret as research because I don’t want them to be lost literally in the system. And women will tell you we do not want to be represented as a statistic. So there you go. So I try not to thank you.

David Jones [00:35:16]:

Do you find, I mean, if you’re doing three, say, hour long interviews, do you find that your feelings and your relationship with the person change over time.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:35:29]:

I think it changes in, well, I have to share that you don’t get to really, as we understand to know them that well, but you get to know more about them and then the letter writing afterwards, you get to really know about them because they open up more. I think what’s important there is that I try not to go in with a preconceived idea of who I’m going to meet and I think that helps. And that’s come with getting older and more in the system as opposed to when I first started out. I do believe that over the second and third interview or conversation that we do have, there is a comfortability and I’m starting to pick up little cues about is it wise to take her down this path in conversation or refrain from that or that’s not a thing we should be talking about. So getting to know them and getting to be comfortable with them, I embrace. And again, I’ve had many awkward moments and I’m sure we all have a bit like doing a podcast when you ask a question and you get a short answer and it’s like, okay, where do we go from here? So then you learn over the time to have the patience and move on.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:36:36]:

So I built a really, overall, I think a nice, comfortable rapport with many women. But it doesn’t always say that the women think I’m the greatest years later. But I try to continue, you know, and get to know them a little bit. But it’s usually in the follow up letters or, you know, cards that I’ll get. And I often get lovely cards, handmade cards at Christmas time from women I haven’t heard from the 6 months, 12 months, just checking in to see how things are going. So isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that beautiful how they’re checking in on me as opposed to me over a period of time? That’s what makes my job my research.

David Jones [00:37:14]:

Well, it is beautiful, but it’s also somewhat poignant, isn’t it? Because you’ve become an important figure in their life. Anyway, Naomi, I’ve been hogging the show.

Naomi Murphy [00:37:24]:

No, that’s quite all right. I was thinking, Kathryn, as you were talking, it was reminding me of, I think as a clinician, it’s really important to like the people that you’re working with. If you’re going to do justice to the therapeutic process, you need to like them, which obviously can be a challenge when you’re faced with people who’ve committed heinous acts. I suppose I was wondering how much is this an issue for sort of good qualitative research. And how do you manage overcoming that obstacle if it occurs?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:37:51]:

As a researcher, it is important. You have to overcome that the best you can. You’re right, because I’ve experienced this earlier on, if you start to focus on specific women because you feel that you’ve got that bit of bond or rapport that skews your research, that really does, it certainly doesn’t help what you’re aiming to do. In other words, share the bigger picture and be very clear about, you know, exactly what these women are like or what their stories are. So I can understand with a clinician, because you are going in day in, day out, where with myself, I only have that short period of time, although I do follow up for visitations for some women in writing. So I’ve never really found it, it is an obstacle for researchers because some of us can go and say, well, I want to follow up on this woman. I’m not really interested.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:38:43]:

But I’ve learned that that doesn’t do me justice, even personally, as well as my whole research project, because, yeah, in qualitative research, we shouldn’t pick and choose. That’s why I use random sampling as well. And that’s always why it’s good to have someone in the prison system that you work closely with, so that many women can be offered the opportunity, as opposed to prison administrators choosing who you’re going to interview. So I do understand that, but for me, and it sounds terrible, I just walk away. I try not to, but I’m not with them day in, day out. So I think that certainly helps a little bit as well and makes me a little bit more open, shall we say?

Naomi Murphy [00:39:31]:

So it sounds, Kathryn, like ethics and integrity are important to you in terms of your research. That’s kind of coming through as you’re describing, you know, there’s a sense that you’re honouring your participants in that description. And when I was clinical director of a project where there was quite often bids for researchers to come in and do research, it felt important to us, I think, because we felt quite protective of the individuals that rather than them just being statistics and people coming in and doing a data sweep, that we wanted there to be a benefit for the men when they did actually participate in the research, I suppose I was curious about whether that was something that you thought about when you do your research. So rather than just having this end product of women in jail are, you know, how do you try and make sure that you’re not just exploiting and data mining with these women who in some ways are vulnerable.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:40:27]:

Great question. Thank you. Well, again, what I do is just make sure that there’s not going to be any money changing hands that they are doing this. But what I do share with them is to tell them that I am writing their story, that it is coming from them. Now that’s a little bit different because I know with qualitative research and quantitative research we’ll analyse statistics and surveys. I never do surveys. What I try to do or what I really do is when I meet with the women, share that this is a very personal journey between the two of us and it really becomes that way. And the benefits for you are to tell and speak up now.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:41:07]:

And that what I do, and again, this is unique. And I’ll go out on a limb and say that because I share with the women, I’m offering you an authentic, as much as I can believe it is platform to have a voice. And wherever that voice, wherever your storytelling takes us, I continue to follow through. I do talk to them about this is not just for peer reviewed journals. As an academic, I think what I’ve got a knack of is breaking down that barrier to say, I’m a human being. I’m not here to sensationalise your story, but I would love your story from you. And I will give you media platforms if you wish to participate. And it’s not like so that is really important and I can understand, Naomi, what you said is that so many and the women tell me this, well, we don’t want to be used and abused.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:42:00]:

We don’t want to be sensationalised. And again, all I can share with them and they do come back, women do reach out or they’ve heard about my work. Knowing that, you know, within a short period of time I haven’t got a book written and it’s all about A, B and C of their lives. Knowing that it has taken time. And during that time I’ve worked on their words and presented it in a number of platforms. I think that’s really key to what I do because we all know as researchers, we all want that great research and that research article. The outcome, what I do differently is that my goal isn’t enhanced by having a research paper. My goal is enhanced by having as best possible a true story told from these women and giving them platforms, differing platforms where they can share this information and women talk.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:42:51]:

We all, we’re the best chatterboxes going. And I know in the prisons I’ve been, there are women that will reach out to me after they hear what I’ve done and that they know over the years there hasn’t been any negativity or, oh, I heard you wrote about, you know, this woman and now it’s on tv and you’re making all this money. I don’t do that. I don’t make any money. It’s just a wonderful thing. So I just share the best I can.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:43:17]:

And if women wish to walk away, they do. But most of the time I found them very welcoming and wanting to share the story but not be the statistic and own their story. And that’s how I share and that’s the best I can do.

Naomi Murphy [00:43:30]:

Sounds like you’re giving people the opportunity to be seen as a whole person, which, you know, we all want to be seen, don’t we? And I think there is a tendency with incarcerated people to see them just as the worst moment of their lives. And it sounds like you give them the opportunity to be seen in a more rounded way.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:43:48]:

Yes, that’s my goal. No matter what they have done, I’m not there to judge. They’re being judged, they’re incarcerated, they’ve been abandoned. There are all these external variables there. But for me, that’s not my role. My role is to give them a chance to have a voice and share their story because we understand media has a way, those platforms of sensationalising. And I try not to do that. I want their stories out there.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:44:16]:

And of course, it’s recognition for me. But no, I think it’s very important. And the women know that. They talk amongst themselves from prison to prison, you know, from woman to woman. But I am one of these that if a woman doesn’t wish to continue with participating, her work won’t be recorded, it won’t be used. And I don’t feel bad about it, probably a little bit sad, but I don’t feel bad about it because I want to give them the chance to have a choice to own what they did or to talk about what they did. So, yeah, that’s it. That’s the best I can do.

David Jones [00:44:50]:

Kathryn, women consume far more crime documentaries, films, novels than men. Why do you think this is? And what kind of influence do you think that has?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:45:02]:

Most interesting. 80% of the readers of True Crime and skewed towards female killers, are females around Westernised countries. 80%. It’s just below that. I should say 60 to 65% females. And I’m going to go back to the females, female to female. Females are the highest viewers on television shows, programs, podcasts. Again, there’s so much intrigue about murder, but more specifically about females that do this.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:45:37]:

So we are seeing this trend now. I call it the good, the bad and the ugly. Because really the good about media is that it can for someone, say a female that’s listening, watching, hearing something on a podcast, whatever she can learn or someone can learn about red flags about, you know, victimisation, maybe they’re going through that. So some of these media stories or newsworthy stories or podcasts, they can draw attention to what shall we say in this case a woman or a female is going through. So that can help. That is the goodness that some of this media or reading books may help. On the other hand, I call it the bad because it can also be these stories, these podcasts, it can also retraumatise the victim’s family and friends. And let’s not forget about the offenders families and friends.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:46:34]:

Okay, so that to me is the piece about the bad. When we think about mental health media and the sensationalism and then the ugly talking about sensationalism is that often across the board, the facts aren’t always that 100% correct. So again, distorted messaging, and I’m not saying it’s all media by any means or books or podcasts, but there are a number that, you know, the ugly is that it is a distorted message that comes across. So, you know, that’s how I frame the role of what happens in society. But especially when women, sometimes they even call them couch, you know, couch detectives, I’m sure if you heard about that. But sitting back and watching these programs or listening and then they want to solve the crime. So, you know, there’s many, many areas that we could talk about with media, but there are, I always like to talk about, you know, the bad and the retraumatising of the families and, or friends, but not forgetting both parties because there are women that have offended and their loved ones are also in many instances paying the price for what they did too.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:47:41]:

So it’s a fascinating area. We’ve got to watch AI And I want to go back to something too with AI I noticed, and this goes back to feminist criminology is that when I put in, you know, women who kill women, what percentage, you know, just to check out, because I try not to use AI for this at all.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:47:59]:

I won’t. But just to check out what comes up. It often is about women being victimised and they’ve harmed someone in say, intimate, personal, intimate partner homicide or intimate partner violence. Women are often, again, going back to our earlier question, portrayed as victim, where it really rarely comes up as a percentage, as the offender, because again, goes against the grain of us being females, feminine carers, nurturers, etc.

Naomi Murphy [00:48:26]:

Very fascinating. And I often wonder what, you know, in terms of our sort of psyche, what happens with, you know, the vast majority of crime drama certainly consists of an attractive young woman being probably murdered in some horrific way after being raped. And yet, you know, when you think about the vast majority of murder victims are actually male, aren’t they? Women tend to be murdered by people they know in either their home or the home of the perpetrator. And so to some degree we can control risk by being more careful about who it is that we’re getting into intimate relationships with. But that isn’t really what you would think if you just consume the media, because I think we end up as women being quite scared to walk home. And maybe some of that is we’re not being killed on the streets with the same frequency because we don’t go out on the streets late at night as often as men do. But you have to wonder to what degree this kind of like consumption of crime fiction, is shaping our beliefs about society.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:49:33]:

Really? Yes. And it is and with social media, it has enhanced this. And you’re right, it’s almost like for some women, particularly if they’re in that realm, it’s the confidence, the low self esteem and believing. I think this is what really is sad, is believing that what we see or hear on television or podcasts or whatever it may be, that is real and that can. I’m not discrediting or saying that it can’t happen, but it’s like it increases the risk in our mind, mentally, psychologically, increases that risk of harm coming towards us. And that’s something we really do have to think about. But I do want to share too, that with women that I work with, a larger percentage have killed.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:50:14]:

As we know women that do commit murder, a large percentage are loved ones, someone close to them and someone they know. Whereas men, most of the percentage or the larger percentage of their victims are certainly acquaintances, strangers, brothers, fathers, cousins and people that they may meet in the street or going out somewhere outside the home environment. I work a lot with women that have killed their children, often their biological children about 65% of my women, when I say my women or the women I work with, I should say, particularly here in the United States, have killed one or two of their children. So then that’s another strand of conversation about filicide.

David Jones [00:50:55]:

Thank you, Kathryn. I feel we could go on talking for ages, but we will have to stop soon. You mentioned podcasts and of course, you do a podcast yourself called Self Identities: Conversations with Convicted Women. Can you tell us about that?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:51:14]:

Thank you, David. Yes, Self Identities: Conversations with Convicted Women. I’m getting another chance there to talk about it. Thank you for that. And is exactly it, what it is is that we have at this stage 20 episodes. I go in to a state prison here and the two state prisons in Pennsylvania at this stage I’ve entered and I sit down and one on one. But this isn’t the interview, isn’t a stringent interview. This is a conversation.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:51:44]:

I’ll have a few questions with me and then we let the conversation flow. So I again take women back to their childhood, take them back to talking about what they like to do or didn’t like to do. And then of course, what is life like? Serving time, incarcerated for a long period of time. So we have 20, shall we say, episodes we have coming out in, as we say, in 2020, we have more women that I have had a conversation with for this podcast. And again, it’s a very relaxed environment as best you can in a prison environment. And it’s a one on one conversation I have with women. Now again we talk about sampling. This was just random.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:52:25]:

Women were asked if they’d like to participate and I can share with you. I sort of got a little bit in trouble from hearing from women saying, well, why wasn’t I chosen? You know, so that happens. But something in this podcast I do want to share is that the youngest female that I have spoken to entered the prison system at 15. Another entered at 16. The oldest female I’ve ever interviewed was 82, but not for the podcast. The longest serving woman has spent 52 years. She’s in her 70s today and has spent 52 years inside a prison system here. Now these women are all incarcerated.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:53:05]:

The other piece I’d like to add is that if you are listening because we have death row in certain states here in the United States. Three women in this podcast talk about what it was like to be on death row 14 years and lower, what it was like for them day in, day out, waiting for someone to come to that door. So they talk about that, they opened up which was wonderful. What was it like to experience death row or being on death row and then finally appealing and now you’re in general or GP, general population. So that’s part of that podcast. But again, as I said earlier, my role is all about as a researcher and beyond that, providing platforms for these women to actually be heard as women as opposed to someone else narrating on their behalf.

Naomi Murphy [00:53:57]:

And you’ve also made a documentary, haven’t you? Until we have Faces, I think it’s called, which is available on YouTube. Can you tell us a bit about this?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:54:06]:

Thank you for sharing that too. That was done a few years ago. We went in and again, we understand in a prison system you can only film. There are some prisons that will allow women in the United States to show their faces, but in Pennsylvania we were not permitted. So what did we do? We called it Until we have Faces. Now here, women, they all apply. Well, there was many that wanted to be in the documentary, but here you’ll hear women in small groups talk to each other about their childhood, talk to each other about their life of incarceration, talk about many different issues, challenges past and present. It’s very humbling.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:54:43]:

And it’s a documentary. If you just close your eyes and listen to what the women say. One woman, again, she has huge mental health problems. She stabbed a young woman when she was 19 54 times. She will die in this prison system. She talks about her life there and this is her home. So it’s an educational documentary and I want to share that with listeners. Everything I do is in the form of an education.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:55:11]:

It’s not meant to be a sensationalised documentary, etc. It is real and we didn’t put words into their mouths. And you’ll hear that in the documentary. Until We Have Faces: Women Serving Life.

Naomi Murphy [00:55:23]:

Yeah, I must watch it. Obviously we only met for the first time a few days ago, so I haven’t had a chance to yet. But we made a film in Whitemoor where I worked. And again, we could only shoot the prisoners from the mouth downwards because we had to make sure their faces were hidden. But I think one of what the filmmaker did very, very well was she conveyed the sort of the humanity of the men who were all there for life sentenced offenses. And also prison officers tend to get a bad rep publicly. And actually what came across was the prison officers and their sort of compassion and the love that they brought to their roles in trying to build relationships with men.

Naomi Murphy [00:56:05]:

So I think these footages can be really powerful when they’re not told from a sensationalist angle.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:56:10]:

Actually. Thank you, Naomi. On that note, too, in the documentary, you’ll hear a woman and just like what you’re sharing there, a woman spent 21 years on death row. She was pregnant. I don’t want to give too much away. She was pregnant. And you talked about the relationship with officers. A female officer, saved her and her baby’s life.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:56:33]:

It’s very powerful. Her few words or her time on the documentary, it does give you goosebumps, and like what you said, I do hear women that will say, I’ve worked or have some great offices, you know. It’s wonderful, because many of us won’t work in that realm. But the women do acknowledge that, and that’s the truth that I love to hear, too. It’s about their professional relationship with some of the officers and staff in these facilities. And you’re right, often it can be very positive.

Naomi Murphy [00:57:06]:

So we’re coming to the end of time, Kathryn. And I’m conscious you’ve spent your working life immersed in probably quite dark stories at times, yet you’ve got a really buoyant, upbeat energy. How do you keep yourself so positive doing this work?

Kathryn Whiteley [00:57:18]:

Wow, that’s a wonderful question. It’s always very hard, but I think certainly goes back to my upbringing, who I am. I just. I think it’s a hard question to answer. And I love Naomi. I think it’s just realising. I think I’ll take a step back and share.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:57:34]:

Since I started doing this, I realised years ago how blessed I am. These women, that’s why I’m doing it and why I’m upbeat. The women have taught me so much about me, my life, where I am today. I think that has certainly, other than just generally my Persona, I think hats off to the women. From when I first began all those years ago to where I am today. They have helped me acknowledge who I am and what I am meant to do. What is my meaning in life, so to speak. So I think that’s really. Because it’s a great question.

Kathryn Whiteley [00:58:14]:

It’s a tough one. Some people will share that or say to me, do you see psychologists? I’ll be up front here. No, I have never. And that’s not saying that’s good, bad, or indifferent. It’s just who I am, how I place loved ones around me, have a great life. But it really comes back to the women have shared with me so much. And I do appreciate every day I have. And it’s thanks to them, really is. So maybe that could help answer that.

Naomi Murphy [00:58:44]:

Thank you. Yeah. You’re falling back on gratitude within that. Yes. Thank you. Really lovely to talk to you today, Kathryn. Thanks for joining us.