Female Repeat Offenders Negotiating Identity Brenda Geiger Michael Fischer Abstract: This study examines the process of identity negotiation for Israeli female ex-convicts who were separated for extensive periods of time from their children and eventually lost cus- tody over them. The content analysis of in-depth interviews reveals that these women were able to reconstruct their biographies and retrospectively account for their crimes and drug addic- tion in terms of the sexual, physical, and economic abuse they had endured and by appeal to higher loyalties, their children who they had to provide for. However, when having to account for their failings as mothers, all biographical reconstruction, external blame, and accusation collapsed. Looking at themselves through their children’s eyes, female offenders were simply unable to renegotiate the imputed identity of incompetent mother. They could neither confront their children’s anger nor explain to them why they had abandoned them. Permanently alien- ated from the center of motherhood, these women were doomed to an existential chaos. Keywords: imprisoned mothers; female offenders; identity negotiation; accounts; rehabilitation The worst pain of imprisonment for Israeli and U.S. female convicts is separation from their children (N. Fuchs, head social worker Neve-Tirza prison, personal communication, May 26, 2001; Pollock-Byrne, 1990; Zoann, 1994). Incarcera- tion for extensive periods of time breaks up the family and puts female offenders at risk of permanently losing their children, both legally and emotionally (Boudin, 1998; Zoann, 1994). This study examines the process of identity negotiation for Israeli female repeat ex-offenders who had often gone through the revolving door of prison and crime and consequently had lost custody rights over their children. Our goal was to find out whether these women were able to reconstruct their biog- raphies and account for their deviation from their role of law-abiding citizens and from motherhood in order to establish a socially acceptable identity. According to Scott and Lyman (1968), identity conferring and role casting are part of every social interaction and are situation specific. Whenever interactants perceive the role or identity imputed on to them to be disadvantageous, pejorative, or deviant, they will engage in identity negotiation. During this process, accounts are provided and biographies reconstructed to renegotiate the negative identity into which they have been cast. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 47(5), 2003 496-515 DOI: 10.1177/0306624X03253025  2003 Sage Publications 496