Gendered Pathways to Prison in Thailand for Drug Offending? Exploring Women’s and Men’s Narratives of Offending and Criminalization

In criminology, there is a growing body of research exploring pathways into prison. However, few researchers have concerned themselves with qualitative gender-comparative studies of women’s and men’s journeys to offending and criminalization. Further, little is known about trajectories into non-Western prison systems. In this article, life course and feminist pathways perspectives are drawn on to describe, examine, and compare women’s and men’s pathways to prison for drug offending in Thailand. Overall, findings point to both similarities and divergences in experiences by gender. Four common themes or pathways to prison emerged for both women and men: (1) adverse childhood experiences, (2) peer-group association, (3) economic motivation, and (4) male deception and exploitation. However, gendered variance was found within these common pathways.