著者

中河 伸俊

出版者

社会学研究会

雑誌

ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.27, no.1, pp.89-113,147, 1982

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Of the 297 inmates studied, abut one fourth have engaged in prostitution. The aim of this paper is to illustrate and analyze the careers of these inmates. By a "career" we mean one of many components of a person's life history, such as school career, occupational career, and marriage career. Acts of prostitution are treated as a part of the process of a deviant career, "career of prostitution"<br> First the career of the inmates who have engaged in prostitution are compared with the careers of those who have not, in order to illustrate the characteristics of the careers of the former. Some of the findings from the comparison are as follows: The inmates who have engaged in prostitution tend to have less education, are more likely to have run away fromhome and to have repeated marriage (namely common-law marriage ) more often. Also, there are more "mentally retarded" among the inmates who have committed prostitution. It is likely that inferior job opportunities due to lower educational achievement, "mental retardation" and running away are some of the "causes" of prostitution.<br> In the latter part of the paper, we observe the sequential process of "career of prostitution" in detail. The initial act of prostitution was usually committed when the inmates lived apart from their "conventional significant others". Also, interestingly, a number of the inmates' "careers of prostitution" show intermittence. By employing the age at which the initial act was commited and two other features as criteria, a typology of the inmates' "career of prostitution" is developed. It contains four types --- "the early-quitter" "the intermittently down fallen" "the exploited" and "the destitute" We hope this typology, along with other findings in this paper, will facilitate further reseaches on prostitution and the careers of women who have committed prostitution.