The Moral Career of a Woman Convicted of Homicide: a Narrative Analysis

Abstract

Women convicted under Article 105 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (“Homicide”) of the Russian Federation, in about one third of cases, claim in court that they committed the homicide in self-defense. This contradicts the court decisions finding them guilty of premeditated murder. The court verdicts, although presenting the women’s positions on the homicide, are distorted, primarily due to the institutional conditions of testimony. Thus, it remains unclear how the women feel about the homicide: the court has ruled that she is guilty, but how do they feel about their act and themselves? To answer this question, six biographical and three expert interviews were conducted. For the analysis, the concept of moral career proposed by E. Goffman is employed, which allows us to trace the process of transformation of women’s “self” and the experience of damaged social identity (stigma). The result of the study is the reconstruction of the moral career of women who committed homicide, highlighting the narratives of self-blame and self-justification. The author suggests that whether a woman leans toward self-blame or self-justification depends less on how successful her post-prison life is, and more on whether she has found — or hopes to find — an alternative identity. This new identity must be strong enough to compete with the identity of a “killer”. For some women, the identity of a mother becomes this alternative. It allows them to present themselves as “normal” and to separate themselves from the label of a “killer”.