Women As Victims And Offenders

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There have been many changes in the treatment of offenders by the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales, particularly the treatment of female offenders. The handling of women within the criminal justice system has been closely tied to their social characteristics, and to what might be described as their ‘social construction’. On the other hand, women who compromise more than half of the world’s population, account for only 15% of criminal activity and as a consequence, relatively little attention has been given to them. This essay will explore how this has changed from a historical point of view to modern times, with exploration from cross-culture comparisons and an overview of the treatments of females in prisons.

A while ago when someone thinks of careers in criminal justice, they most likely imagine men in any positions that come to mind. Maybe because most feel the field of criminal justice is unsafe, stressful, and unpredictable. Before 1972, the number of women employed in the criminal justice system as police officers, correctional officers, lawyers, and judges was a small number. This is understandable: statistics from a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs – Bureau of Justice Statistics show that men outnumber women in all areas of federal law enforcement, in most places making up at least 75 percent of the workforce. Now according to the United States Department of Labor, women make up 46.8% of the US workforce.

There are a lot of issues when it comes to gender blindness in society. In the criminal justice system, it is a bit more obvious. Women and men are treated differently in the criminal justice system, they are more lenient and bias towards females. As this paper progresses, a lot of the situations become more obvious and noticeable as the realization occurs. There are differences between what people of society think of men and women in the criminal justice system.

“Love resurrected them; the heart of one contained infinite sources of life for the heart of the other” (Dostoyevsky 521). Crime And Punishment is a novel about one man, Raskolnikov; this novel follows his life after committing a terrible crime, murder. This novel shows the mental and physical affects that play on his body after committing such a crime. In the novel Crime And Punishment, Dostoyevsky uses Alyona, Sonia and to drive the plot of the novel.

The media today, is highly selective in their constructions of offences, offenders and victims. Media representations of crime are moulded and women are portrayed in a way that is entertainment driven and is appealing to the audience. Despite the fact that women seldom stalk, murder outsiders or commit sequential murders- in fact they are rarely vehement, “accounting for only ten percent of convicted violent offenders- those who do so are highly newsworthy because of their novelty” (Jewkes 2011, p. 123) Present day media admits that because fierce women are comparatively uncommon, they are all the more appealing and diabolical to the audience as a result. The essay shall discuss the reason and presentation in the media of female offenders, female victims and women specific crimes.

The number of women incarcerated is growing at a rapid pace. This calls for a reevaluation of our correction institutions to deal with women’s involvement in crime. Increasing numbers of arrests for property crime and public order offenses are outpacing that of men. The “War on Drugs” has a big influence on why our prisons have become overcrowded in the last 25 years. Women are impacted more than ever because they are being convicted equally for drug and other offenses. Female criminal behavior has always been identified as minor compared to Male’s criminal behavior. Over the years women have made up only small part of the offender populations. There is still only a small

Within society, there is an engrained belief of what makes a person a legitimate victim and often their status as a ‘victim’ is questioned. This is especially true if the victim does not fit the typical stereotype of who is considered to be a legitimate victim. This is most widely illustrated in cases involving male victims of sexual assault.

Female offenders are often found to be subjected to double jeopardy as it is often suggested that in the crimes they commit, they have broken the law and have too gone against their femininity (Lloyd, 1995). Heidensohn (1985) argues women are treated worse than men even if the crime committed is the same or of similarity, as women are perceived to be improper roles of feminineness. A widely acknowledged example would be Myra Hindley, who with her partner Ian Brady physically tortured and abused children. The disparity of treatment between men and women is argued to be due to the fact that sexual behaviours by females are perceived as morally outrageous as they have betrayed the maternal instinct they should possess, and so are dealt with more

All feminist theorists share a common focus on gender inequality; however feminism can be described as a set of perspectives rather than a single viewpoint (Strider, N.d.). Therefore, challenging gender biasness in the criminal justice system from the feminist perspective can take many forms given the fact that there a lot of sources of gender inequality in the system. For example, the early theories of criminal behavior largely ignored gender all together and as a result the field has become largely male dominated and males have also been shown to commit more crimes than women on average.

Tong (1989) states Radical feminist only have to ask such questions as “who rapes whom?,” who batters whom, “ for whom does pornography exist, for the ultimate answer to the question to be, men!

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