Interview Strategies in Studies of Women With High Levels of Victimization and Trauma

Characteristics of Convicted Women

Prior research has revealed that women in the criminal-legal system have high prevalence of victimization as children and adults. Research on a sample of 406 Kentucky women on probation and parole showed lifetime prevalence of 72.25% for psychological abuse, 64.11% for physical abuse, and 38.36% for sexual abuse (Golder et al., 2015). For victimization by an intimate partner, the percentages were 72.25% for emotional abuse, 89.6% for physical abuse, and 53.60% for sexual abuse. Additionally, slightly more than half of the sampled women had experienced physical and sexual violence that was not perpetrated by an intimate partner. In a study of 115 women in 5 jail locations, DeHart et al. (2014) showed a link between intimate partner violence and property crimes, drug offending, and commercial sex work; and a connection between witnessing violence and property crimes, fighting, and use of weapons. The research on incarcerated women is relevant to women who are supervised in the community, since individuals often cycle between probation, jail, and prison. Confirming findings for women supervised in the community, a comparison of 500 women in prison in Ohio with a random sample of women in the general population showed much higher proportions of victimization by rape during childhood (by the age of 17; 49.4% vs. 4.8%), and higher proportions of rape in their lifetimes (70.3% vs. 17.2%; Belknap & McDaniels Wilson, 2025).

In addition to high prevalence of victimization and exposure to violence, convicted women have high prevalence of substance misuse. Women misusing substances constitute the largest group of women on probation or parole (Fazel et al., 2017; Fearn et al., 2016). There is also evidence that in both prisons and jails, a higher proportion of women than men meet the criteria for a substance abuse disorder, and the differences are substantial (Carson, 2021; Fazel et al., 2017; Maruschak et al., 2021). Childhood and adult victimization may explain why women in the criminal legal system have high prevalence of substance misuse. Women who misuse substances are especially likely to have experienced victimization and exposure to violence in childhood and adulthood (Green et al., 2016). In the general population, women more than men have a strong association between substance misuse and childhood adversities that include abuse, neglect, and abandonment (Grummitt et al., 2022). A qualitative study showed how victimization in childhood promoted the misuse of substances to cope by self-medicating, to escape troubling home circumstances such as abuse or divorce, or because family members misused substances (Boppre & Boyer, 2021; also see Belknap, 2021). As a result of the co-occurrence of women’s criminal convictions, experience of violence, and substance misuse, convicted women’s life stories often include disturbing, harmful, and traumatic events (Brennan et al., 2012; Hoskins & Morash, 2021). Thus, it is important to focus research on interview strategies that can make the interview process as positive as possible.

The present analysis focuses on the understudied group, drug-involved women in the criminal legal system who are on probation (community supervision instead of incarceration) or parole (community supervision after release from prison). In general, there is a dearth of research on women in the criminal legal system (Belknap, 2021). Women on probation and parole have been most neglected, particularly when one considers their sizable numbers in comparison to the more often studied women who are incarcerated. Women with criminal convictions are more likely than men to be under community supervision rather than incarcerated (Nowacki, 2020). As a result, women on probation or parole numbered 808,700 in 2024, which constitutes 82% of all women under correctional control (Kajstura & Sawyer, 2024). Considerable evidence confirms that women in the criminal legal system have typically lived through many experiences that are adverse, traumatic, and emotionally challenging (Belknap, 2021).

Prior studies have examined the effects of participation in interviews that contain questions about one type of negative event, for example, sexual assault or domestic violence (Campbell et al., 2010; Cook et al., 2014; Hebenstreit & DePrince, 2012; Shorey et al., 2011). Given the potential for women in the criminal legal system to have experienced numerous instances and types of past victimization, it is especially important to examine their interaction with interviewers to identify the effects of telling their life stories and interviewer strategies that can enhance benefits and mitigate risks.

Potential Effects of Life Story Interviews

Prior research has identified positive and negative reactions of victimization survivors who participated in research on traumatic events that include sexual assault, domestic violence, and dating violence. Campbell et al. (2010) found that nearly all sexual assault survivors in their sample found the interview supportive, helpful, and insightful. The participants noticed and appreciated the feminist research principles that guided the research, specifically the reduced hierarchy between interviewer and interviewee, provision of information and resources, and a research setting marked by support and compassion. Griffin et al. (2003) asked survivors in separate studies of domestic violence, rape, and physical assault how assessments of these experiences affected them. They found that most were not distressed, and many viewed the interview as interesting and valuable. Participants in a study of abused women provided examples of how interviews that applied feminist principals empowered women and gave them a way to be heard (Burgess-Proctor, 2015). Across other studies, women interviewed about traumatic experiences more often reported positive than negative effects, with the most documented negative effect being feeling more upset and more negative emotions than expected (Cromer et al., 2006; Hebenstreit & DePrince, 2012; Shorey et al., 2011).

None of the cited studies examined the effects of a life story interview in a sample of women who were likely to have repeated and multiple types of victimization and trauma in their backgrounds. A life story interview with substance-involved women on probation and parole could evoke recollections back to early childhood and an accumulation of different types of victimization experience that promote and result from struggles with substance disorders and distress associated with arrest, court appearances, and incarceration.

Alternatively, distinct from studies of the effects of research interviews, studies of narrative exposure therapy show that for individuals who have suffered traumatic events, telling one’s story to a therapist can have benefits. Specifically, it can promote post traumatic growth by increasing feelings of power, making a person aware of new possibilities, and stimulating identification as a survivor rather than a victim (Tedeschi et al., 2018). Consistent with theories of post traumatic growth, narrative exposure therapy is a treatment that helps individuals who have had a traumatic experience create a coherent life story narrative (Schauer et al., 2011). A meta-analysis showed that for 16 randomized controlled trials, narrative exposure therapy had sustained positive results (Lely et al., 2019). Similarly, a meta-analysis to compare narrative exposure therapy to alternative therapies found the narrative approach to be highly effective (Crech & Crech, 2020).

Therapists’ methods of using the life story interview to help clients would be outside of the skill set and research role of interviewers. However, several narrative therapy approaches are embedded in the life story interview protocol used for the present research. These include questions about high points, wisdom events, and the context of negative events. Such questions can encourage people to recall positive aspects of their identities and recognize external forces that led to substance misuse, illegal behavior, and mental illness (Mahoney & Daniel, 2006). Similarly, questions about the future can lead to women’s breaking with past negative views of themselves and thinking about the possibility of a changed identity and circumstances. Asking women what key events in their lives say about them gives them a chance to identify qualities such as strength to survive, steps taken to improve life, or capability to change. Additionally, taking the opportunity to share one’s story to help other women or improve probation and parole could have positive therapeutic effects (Gardner-Elahi & Samiri, 2015). Thus, although the life-story interview may have negative effects, it also may positively affect women with high prevalence of past adverse and traumatic experiences.

Based on the material reviewed thus far, the research described below addressed the following questions for a sample of women with repeated convictions and thus a high prevalence of violence exposure and substance misuse:

Data Within Two Broader Studies

Analysis focused on transcripts of the dialogue with interviewers after women answered questions about the experience of just having told their life stories. These data came from one part of an interview conducted during two sequential longitudinal studies of the same women. To explain the purpose of the series of six interviews during the two studies, as part of the consent process, interviewers provided the following written information and reviewed it verbally: “The researchers hope to learn about how some women are able to stay out of further difficulty with the law, and also what barriers they face and how they change as they mature.” Most of the six interviews conducted for the sequential studies focused on women’s needs and correctional interventions to meet those needs, but the fifth elicited women’s life stories to examine identity development as a possible explanation of desistance. Data collection took place between 2011 and 2017, with women starting participation in 2011 and 2012. The life story interviews, which ended with questions about the experience of telling one’s life story, were conducted between January 2015 and April 2017.

Interviewer and Analyst Positionality

Five women conducted the life story interviews. Three were PhD graduate students in criminology/criminal justice, one was in a Master of Social Work program, and one was an early-career criminologist and co-PI for the larger studies. All had academic or employment interests with a focus on justice for women who had broken the law. Consistent with narrative interview approaches (Murray, 2021), interviewers were selected and trained to be non-judgmental, supportive, and self-presenting in a way that minimized inequality, with study participants being experts on their lives and the interviewers learning from them. The larger research that contained the life story interview used a method compatible with narrative inquiry, specifically the methods of feminist inquiry that endorses non-hierarchical, collaborative relationships between research staff and participants and care and compassion on the part of research staff (Burgess-Proctor, 2015; Campbell et al., 2010; Griffin et al., 2003). Interviewers had been selected and trained to maximize the probability that they would accept participants’ statements without judgment and communicate the importance of participants’ viewpoint and knowledge of their needs and experiences.

As the Principal Investigator for the two studies and analyst for the data on the experience of telling one’s life story, the sole author of this paper brought a critical feminist criminology theoretical orientation, and a knowledge of narrative identity theory to the task of analyzing the data. The author was also well-versed in communication theories that focus on social support, so previously documented types of support acted as sensitizing concepts in the analysis phase (Blumer, 1954). These background factors heightened concern for the well-being of study participants and provided sensitization to look for evidence of women’s belief that they had grown or, instead, evidence of a stigmatized life and identity in their retrospective looks back at telling their stories.

Participants

The full sample for the two studies included 402 women on probation or parole for a felony offense and with a history of substance misuse. The women were on probation or parole in a midwestern state that had a state-level department responsible for community supervision in all cases involving a felony. This state correctional department had shifted toward supervision that emphasized coaching and assisting people under supervision (Morash, 2024). To achieve the broader research purpose of understanding desistance after multiple convictions, the life story subsample was restricted to 118 women with more than 5 convictions before the first interview.

Demographics and descriptive information for study participants are included in Table 1. The sample was racially diverse and included women with a range of ages. Affirming the expectation of high prevalence of victimization, substantial proportions experienced either childhood or adult physical or sexual abuse. A very high proportion of women indicated a prior traumatic event in their lives they considered to be “extremely frightening, horrible, or upsetting.”

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Table 1.

Demographic Statistics and Indicators of Abuse and Trauma for 118 Women who Completed the Life Story Interview.

Descriptive statistics	M	SD	range	%	n
Age	39.98	9.19	22–59		118
Race/ethnicity
White				45.3	53
Black				36.7	43
Native American				0.8	1
Multiracial a				17.1	20
Childhood physical abuse
no				57.6	68
yes				42.4	50
Childhood sexual abuse
no				64.4	76
yes				35.6	42
Adult physical abuse
no				43.2	51
yes				56.8	67
Adult sexual abuse
no				64.4	76
yes				35.6	42
Lifetime traumatic experience
no				11.9	14
yes				88.1	104

a

Women were categorized as multiracial if they indicated they identified as mixed-race, Latina, or “other.” Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

At the time of the life story interview, the women in the subsample ranged from age 22 to 59 years old (M = 39.98, SD = 9.19). For the 117 who answered questions about race and ethnicity, most identified as White (44.9%) or Black (36.4%), with the remainder (17.8%) identifying as multiracial, Latina, or “other.” Affirming the expectation of high prevalence of victimization in their lives before the start of the research, at the first interview, 57.3% (n = 67) said that they were physically abused as adults, 42.7% (n = 50) said they were physically abused as children, 35.9% (n = 42) said they experienced sexual abuse as adults, and 35.9% (n = 42) said they experienced sexual abuse as children. During the final interview, approximately a year after women told their life stories, a high proportion (88.1%, or n = 104) answered this question affirmatively: “In your life have you had any experience that was extremely frightening, horrible, or upsetting.”

Participant Recruitment

During recruitment into the subsample, interviewers told women that this would be a very different type of interview than past interviews since they would be deciding how to tell their life stories rather than answering a series of specific questions that asked for short answers or a choice such as “yes” or “no.” In essence, interviewers were trained to communicate that study participants would have quite a bit of control over the interview (Murray, 2017). Consistent with the narrative life story method (Atkinson, 2012), the life story interview did not include questions about illegal behavior, drug use, trauma, or any other specific topics. Instead, interviewers encouraged study participants to describe the parts of their lives that they saw as important and that they wanted to share.

Questions About Telling the Life Story

After women completed their life stories, interviewers presented ideas from the following statement:

Thank you for this interview. I have just one more question for you. Many of the stories you have told me are about experiences that stand out from the day-to-day. For example, we talked about a high point, a turning point, a scene about your health, etc. Given that most people don’t share their life stories in this way on a regular basis, I’m wondering if you might reflect for one last moment about what this interview, here today, has been like for you. What were your thoughts and feelings during the interview?

Interviewers adapted this script to flow naturally from the preceding elicitation of the life story, and they followed up with statements or prompts to encourage elaboration and, as shown by the analysis, to contribute to participants’ explanations.

Data Collection Procedure

The study protocol and instruments were approved by the Michigan State University IRB. Study participants received an incentive of $75 for taking part in the life story interview. All life story interviews were conducted in private settings. All participants were on probation or on parole when they began the main study, however, by the time of the life story interview, which took place during the 5th interview session, 7 out of 118 interviews were conducted in prison with women who had been newly incarcerated. The same interviewers who conducted interviews in the community went to the prison to carry out those interviews. The life stories were completed in one interview session and on average took an hour-and-a-half. Approximately 10 minutes of this time were devoted to women’s reflections on how the life story interview had affected them. To maintain confidentiality, pseudonyms are used in the “Results” section.

As introduction to the life story interview, interviewers told participants that the hope was that the research would help other women and that it would improve probation and parole supervision. This protocol opened the door for study participants to see their life stories as helpful to others and to understand that the interviewer thought women’s stories were valuable. Interviewers suggested that the audience for the story included not only the interviewer, but also other women entangled in the criminal legal system and personnel who designed and delivered probation and parole oversight. This suggestion of an expanded audience is important, since people direct life stories at a particular audience (Josselson & Hopkins, 2015).

Interviewers audio-recorded the in-person life stories unless they were conducted in a prison that prohibited audio-recording. For the interviews in prison, one interviewer asked the questions, and she and a second interviewer took notes that they jointly transformed into a written record of the interview as soon after completion as possible.

Transcription and Analysis

Trained project staff transcribed audio-recorded and, for incarcerated women entered, the scripted questions and the verbatim dialogue between participants and interviewers into Microsoft Word files. A second staff member checked all transcripts against the audiotapes and made necessary corrections. The life story transcripts were imported into software for qualitative analysis (NVIVO). The author of this paper used an inductive approach to identify passages that reflected benefits of the research that participants described as well as their sense that instead of having some benefit, the interview left them with negative feelings. Then a constant comparison method was used to repeatedly compare data with initial codes reflecting different types of benefits or an overall negative effect of the interview, and through repeated comparison, to refine the codes (Charmaz, 2014; Glaser & Strauss,1967). More specifically, the data were reviewed three times and all text indicating a benefit of the interview was marked. Then, marked text was inductively coded into similar types of benefits, for example relief at having talked about negative events or recognition of positive change over time. With the different types of benefit in mind, each passage was reexamined for fit with the coded themes, and final codes for each mention of each type of benefit were marked in the text and entered into a spreadsheet noting each coded theme for each study participant.

Some women described their experiences of being interviewed without any additional dialogue with the interviewer. In this paper, these descriptions are referred to as spontaneous responses, which means that they were not responses to interviewers’ follow-up probes. However, other individuals and their interviewers engaged in follow-up dialogue during which they co-constructed a description of the effects of the interview. Data were examined to identify examples of dialogue that showed how participants and interviewers co-constructed benefits, how interviewers provided support to participants, and how interviewers made comments to minimize negative outcomes of the interview during discussions of the effects of the life story interview.

The results section first presents spontaneous participant statements that were not responses to a follow-up comment or question by the interviewer and then presents examples of dialogue through which participants and interviewers co-constructed the experience of telling the life stories. Analysis identified various types of benefits, a relatively small group of women who expressed considerable distress after telling their stories, and interviewer efforts to promote positive and minimize negative effects through their comments. Specifically, interviewers provided social support, pointed out the value of participants’ life stories, and made comments to minimize participants’ distress.

Benefits

Of the 116 women, 88 (75.86%) with coded themes indicated a positive effect of telling their life stories. Seventy-six of them noted one positive effect, 11 noted two positive effects, and 1 noted three positive effects. The examples presented in Table 2 illustrate the different types of women’s statements about benefits from taking part in the life story interview. Below, percentages of women noting each type of benefit are calculated using the number of women with transcripts coded for each theme divided by 116 women as the denominator and converting the result to a percentage.

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Table 2.

Participants’ Spontaneous Descriptions of Positive Effects of Telling their Life Stories.

Row	Effect	Examples and pseudonyms
1	Talk of negative events brings relief	“It just feels good to relieve some, you know, thoughts. It’s like a come-clean session. It kinda helps because it just takes a lot of stress and weight off your shoulders about, just different things.” (Marilyn)“Sometimes it’s easier to open up . . . to a stranger, like, versus your family, so . . . it feels, kinda, good to just let a lot of stuff off your chest, talk about it with somebody, talk about your life experience. (Marie)“This has been concealed in here and I never brought it out to speak it, but I feel it, and I think it. But now that I heard myself say it, and I’m thinking, I’m about ready to get some pencil and paper out [laughs].” (Sue)
2	The story connects the past to the present	[Rather than judging a person on their future plans] [L]ike y’all more interested in what happened to get you to this point [as] . . . opposed to, now you at this point, what you gonna do (Raven)
3	The story shows change and improvement	[The interview] “reminds me of what I’ve gone through and how strong I am and how much I have accomplished.” (Sonya)“Even the bad stuff [is] part of who I am. The point is, you’ve moved on.” (Tina)[The interview] “makes you reflect back and appreciate what you have and realize that you are capable of changing anything and to never give up.” (Cheri)
4	The story shows how a negative past led to a positive present	[Interview left her] “thinking about how to view negative in a way that’s positive.” (Brenda)“It [interview] helps me remember the past as not bad but as something I can learn from . . . it’s just what I had to go through to be the good person that I am today.” (Carmen)[After] “taking an inventory” [of her life and all she had been through, she was] “just thankful and grateful to even still be here.” (Alice)
5	The story clarifies future steps to take	[The interview] “just made me think where I’ve been, come from, and what I need to do. I need to continue to strive.” (Tracy)[Before prison release, the interview] “helped me realize that I have made plans and the time is approaching.” (Maxine)[The interview] “opened up a lot of things” [she needed to deal with]. “I need to do what I gotta do, get off my ass and get shit done.” (Andrea)
6	The story can help others	“I feel like my message can help someone else that’s goin’ through a hard time. Like, if they’re goin’ through a hard time with family and stuff, knowin’ that they can push through it and good things will happen to them.” (Carmen)“I hope that what I share can help somebody one day or make a difference in somebody’s life. Whether I’m known as the subject or not, you know, just to be part of that. I’m honestly proud to be a part of it, you know, of you guys calling me.” (Angela)“I’ve been through a lot. If it can inspire somebody, if it can change somebody, if it can help somebody, they [the stories] can prevent people with similar obstacles from doing wrong.” (Jenny)

Examples in Row 1 show that recounting disturbing and traumatizing events, in some cases for the first time, could bring emotional relief. Twenty-nine women (25.00%) described emotional relief. Seven women talked about the relief of getting things off their chest, and three used the term “bottled-up” to describe experiences and feelings they previously did not share with other people, but that they shared with interviewers. Eleven women (9.48%) found benefit from looking back at their entire lives and connecting past events to their current identities (Row 2). Women also saw value in linking their past and present to their future. For instance, Patricia (pseudonym used throughout the “Results” section) said “[The interview] refreshed me again [so I] remember where I came from and where I’m at and where I am today.” Twelve (10.34%) women describe a positive effect of looking at the span of their lives, seeing change and improvement in their life stories, and recognizing their capacity to change themselves for the better (Row 3). For example, women could put negative events into perspective, so they did not overshadow positive events, as shown by Avery’s comment, “I said there’s been some rocky points but, you know, overall it makes you think, well, my life has been pretty good.” Telling their stories also showed 11 (9.48%) study participants how they had constructed positive identities from past negative events (Row 4). For instance, they emerged from trauma and periods of drug use and illegal activity as stronger as or more capable than they had been before. In addition to connecting past to present, 14 women (12.07%) said that recounting life stories increased their awareness of the future steps they needed or planned to take (Row 5). An example here is Cierra’s comment, “It hasn’t affected me badly. It just made me think where I’ve been, come from, and what I need to do.” Finally, 22 women (18.97%) viewed telling their life stories as a way to draw on their histories to help others (Row 6). The examples in Table 2 illustrate how the interview assisted women in seeing how they could use their negative experiences for a good purpose and they provide additional illustrations of the other themes.

Negative Effects

Eight of the women (6.90%) described an overall negative experience of the interview. Gwen said she felt “sad” because “nothing really good stands out” in her life story. Lynette indicated that telling her story showed her that any sense that “life is wonderful” was a façade and that the interview left her “emotionally drained.” Francesca, who worked as a street prostitute and lived with an abusive man, felt it was “just too late now” to make life better. As a final example, Eve noted the negative effect of the interview, “I fell vulnerable now that my emotions are up.” Although relatively few women described the interview as having negative effects, the depth of the negative emotions they expressed shows the need for interviewer strategies to minimize such effects.

Interviewers’ Part in the Conversation

With few exceptions (Alessi & Kahn, 2022; Murray, 2003), the literature provides limited detail about how to communicate support during interviews that elicit accounts of past harms or struggles. To fill this gap, the data were examined for ways that interviewers maximized benefits and minimized risks of taking part in the interview. This examination showed several interviewer strategies to provide social support, highlight the contribution women made by sharing their stories, and minimize or divert attention from negative endings to both the story and the discussion of the interview.

Effective Interview Strategies

Relevant to RQ2 and RQ3, a number of interviewer strategies took advantage of the nature of the life story interview protocol to maximize the benefits and minimize negative effects. Interviewers provided support, for example by pointing out that participants’ stories showed characteristics such as strength or a capacity to cope with difficult situations. Interviewers also provided emotional support by empathizing with women’s distress at being victimized. Based on a literature review and their research on trauma survivors, Alessi and Kahn (2022, p. 24) also recommended the use of emotional support such as “I can see this is very painful to talk about” and esteem support such as “It takes a lot of courage to speak about this.” These types of interviewer comments provide support, but they leave women’s depictions of the life story interview, and more broadly the life story, available for analysis and interpretation. Esteem and emotional support are especially useful when stressful events are severe and neither the interviewer nor the participant has much control over them (Cutrona & Suhr, 1992; Thoits, 2011). These conditions characterized several of the participants’ past and current lives.

Given that interview responses are co-constructed (Stephens & Breheny, 2013), it is necessary to ensure that study participants’ thoughts and perceptions rather than those of the interviewer are captured by the analysis and interpretation. Sections of transcripts presented above show the necessity of transcribing not only the words in the interview protocol, but also the interviewers’ actual verbatim statements and questions, so the data analyst can separate out spontaneous, suggested, and co-constructed participant responses, thereby enabling judgments about the authorship of accounts. Additionally, study participants’ corrections or challenges to interviewers’ ideas help to clarify their accounts. This type of challenge came up when Gwen expressed skepticism about whether her story would have good effects on other women or on community supervision practices. The most trustworthy presentations of findings consider and present these types of occurrences in the data so the reader can draw informed conclusions about the validity of study results. Following the recommendation of Philipps and Mrowczynski (2021), analysis should examine the process of content generation in the interview setting.

Pertinent to RQ4, the present examination of interviewer strategies confirmed that interviewers can shape study participants’ responses to open ended questions. This finding would generalize beyond life story research interviews to all types of research. Especially for vulnerable populations, ways to provide social support by enabling study participants to see the value of the information they provide should be incorporated into study design and interviewer training. Similarly, strategies for minimizing distress should be included in study design and interviewer training. Finally, findings about interviewers’ part in co-constructing not only participants’ assessment of the interview experience, but more generally of study participants’ responses to open ended questions and follow-up probes, requires the data analyst to closely examine the dialogue between interviewer and study participant to fully understand the participant’s perspective.

Limitations

A major limitation of the present research is the lack of generalizability of findings to groups other than women with substantial involvement with the criminal legal system. There is evidence that boys and men entangled with the criminal legal system and in the general population have especially high prevalence of victimization by physical violence in multiple settings and sexual assault in prisons (Miller & Najavits, 2012; Pettus-Davis, 2014; Tedeschi et al., 2018). Men in carceral institutions and trans women have histories of sexual abuse and continue to experience abuse during incarceration (Jenness et al., 2019; Johnson et al., 2006). As another example of a group at high risk for prior victimization, women and men who are military veterans compared to their non-veteran counterparts have especially high rates of trauma (Lehavot et al., 2018). Groups differing in gender and racial/ethnic identification as well as life experiences such as being a veteran may react differently to participation in research on adverse experiences in their life histories, and this possibility should be the focus of future study.