Feb 17, 2011
Women and Crime
The Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development yesterday launched its report on women in the criminal justice system, including papers from a conference on the same topic held late last year. The report was launched by Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness, who is said to have noted that murders committed by women attract widespread media and therefore most public attention, rather than less sensational and less serious offences.
The relative absence from public discourse and official attention of women who are involved in criminality in Ireland replicates a pattern where women were ignored for many years in criminology, given that offending behaviour was presumed to be typically male and so explanations of male crime were seen to explain all crime. Women were viewed as law-abiding by nature, and as likely victims rather than perpetrators of crime, thereby perpetuating the stereotype of the woman as passive and in need of protection.
When attempts were made to explain female offending, a positivistic approach was adopted which focused on physiological, hormonal or psychological explanations. Though this can be of benefit to an individual woman as it may allow her to be considered sick rather than criminal, and thereby avoid a particular label or sentence, it perpetuates certain ideas about women in general as being at the whim of hormones rather than being capable of making a conscious decision arising from a particular context. This may neutralise women’s guilt but also their responsibility. In other words, the exculpation of an individual woman, whether through “chivalrous” sentencing or by sympathetic media coverage, maintains a concept of female passivity, irresponsibility and subordination, and undermines women’s agency.
Coexisting with this notion of female offenders as “mad” rather than “bad” is the “evil woman” thesis . Women who commit crimes are often seen as more problematic than men who behave in a similar way, as they are deemed to have breached traditional conceptions of womanhood. Such women are seen as “doubly deviant” and as sources of evil, resulting in media coverage descending into a witch-hunt, such as regarding Myra Hindley and Catherine “Black Widow” Nevin.
At the launch of the ACJRD report Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness also rightly noted the futility of short prison sentences in terms of women’s lives and the counterproductive effects on families. While the effect of imprisonment on women’s families is indeed grave, a reconsideration of short prison sentences in general is required, not only in the context of female offenders. Framing the debate in terms of the effect on families runs the risk of re-situating the woman in the home, which is viewed as her proper domain, of constructing the woman as partner and mother rather than as rational adult, and of neglecting the impact on the lives of women without children or who are not primary carers.
Turning the spotlight onto female offending and acknowledging the agency of female offenders undoubtedly entails the risk of more robust policing, prosecution and sentencing practices. Thus, to achieve a degree of parity while maintaining fairness, what is required is a reappraisal of criminal justice intervention and sentencing in general, given that short-term imprisonment of men leads to emotional and financial disadvantage on an individual and family basis, and has serious repercussions for relationships and family life.
Yes the bias to women when they were the ones who committed the crime when made public is so much a big story and for men it’s just normal to hear men commit murder. Mostly women could kills somebody especially if they were violated and in defense of their fragile life. It must be recognized that women are the primary carer and provides more stability in homes. Shortened sentencing might be the answer for family stability.