Case study of a female drug-offender in her fifties on parole who had killed two persons

Abstract

The case study of a female drug-offender in her fifties on parole is analyzed using her life narrative, from the perspective that it is desirable to treat criminals with a gender-sensitively approach. This woman had murdered her mother and killed an elderly woman in a car accident. However, she only displayed symptoms similar to PTSD for the murder. The differences between the two offenses and her progression since the murder were examined. She had participated in murdering her mother to help her elder brother. However, her brother had repeatedly betrayed her. Nevertheless, she wanted to maintain a relationship with him. This phenomenon was interpreted from the perspective of the Japanese concept of “Amae” or dependence. She felt unstable concerning the murder of her mother, although she had been maltreated as a child by her mother. She felt drugs help her overcome her harsh feeling, and she had been repeatedly imprisoned for drug offenses. It was considered that telling her life-story, finding the meaning of her experiences, and managing her complicated and accumulated feeling, including the memory of her mother, would induce her drug desistence.