Approach To Women's Lawbreaking: Feminist Criminology

Entry #1: Maynard, Robyn. "Incarcerating youth as justice? An in-depth examination of youth, incarceration, and restorative justice." Canadian Dimension Sept.-Oct. 2011: 25+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

S. (2014). Juvenile justice: a social, historical, and legal perspective (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

In society, things are not as they seem at times. The criminal justice system was created to help deter crime and to punish those who break the law. Laws are put in place to be fair to all citizens. Your economic situation, gender, race should not become a factor for you to be given “due process”. Years have come and gone and the crime rates increases and decreases with the years. There have been many senseless killings and everyone has their point of view as to the causes. The focal point of this report will be the findings from the readings of, “The rich get richer and the poor get prison by Jeffery Reimer and Paul Livingston”. I will discuss the causes of the rise and fall of the many different types of crimes ; why the rise and fall of crime rates; what contribution has the criminal justice and or police system has contributed whether positive or negative; and lastly discuss which economic group ends up in prison and why.

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.

The United States criminal justice system, an outwardly fair organization of integrity and justice, is a perfect example of a seemingly equal situation, which turns out to be anything but for women. The policies imposed in the criminal justice system affect men and women in extremely dissimilar manners. I plan to examine how gender intersects with the understanding of crime and the criminal justice system. Gender plays a significant role in understanding who commits what types of crimes, why they do so, who is most often victimized, and how the criminal justice system responds to these victims and offenders. In order to understand the current state of women and the way in which gender relates to crime and criminal justice, it is first

InThe agencies that comprise of the youth justice system vary from the Police to youth courts. There have been areas to tackle such as the disproportionate number of BAME children together with considering the welfare of a child via the 1933 Children Act. In light of the Ameen Jogee case and other joint enterprise convictions , the trust between the police is only degraded , as they are depicted as an oppositional force for imposing the law amongst the youth population many of whom are also victims of serious crime. The distrust was illustrated in the report by Jenny Jones focusing on young people in London. She proclaimed in order to prevent crime young people must have in the Police force. It is likewise imperative that the Police develop

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.

Female Criminality consists of several outdated statistics regarding the rise of female offending. However, in viewing the current research on the subject, it appears that the overall theme of this dissertation's discussion is still relevant despite changes in the accompanying statistics as seen in viewing the following topics: the rise in female offending; the continual rise that females are committing more crimes than men; and the types of crimes that women are committing. In viewing Bruce Gross's 2009 article, "Battle of the Sexes: The Nature of Female Delinquency," as well as Elizabeth Cauffman's 2008 article, "Understanding the Female Offender," one can begin to see where current statistics regarding the female criminal lie.

Klein, M. (2012). Special Council on Criminal Justice turns its Attention to the Kids. Retrieved from http://www.mikekleinonline.com

In this essay it will focus on feminist contribution to criminology. It will cover different aspects such as: early criminology and the female offender, Lombroso and Ferrero’s views, W. I Thomas and Otto Pollak’s views, sociological criminology and the continued invisibility of women, the development of modern feminist criminology as well as the female concept of crime, Carol Smart and feminist criminology, contemporary feminist criminology, understanding women’s involvement in crime and lastly women, prison and punishment.

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.

Feminist criminology was created out of the realization that criminology from its beginnings focused on the male criminal and the unlawful acts they committed. When in the fact it could be argued female crime was studied as far back as 1800's, female criminal activity, its causes and the effects in which it placed on public opinion were often disregarded. Over the past 20 years, there has been a significantly different approach in how females are being dealt with inside the criminal justice system. This has been the result of a more broadening law enforcement effort, stringent medication sentencing laws, and post-conviction limits to reentry that would greatly influence females.

Feminist criminology emerged out of the realisation that criminology has from its inception centred on men and the crimes they commit. Although it can be argued female criminality was researched by Lombroso, as far back as 1800’s, female crime, it’s causes and the impact in which it had on society was largely ignored by the criminological futurity. Those Criminologist who did attempt to research female crime such as Thomas and Pollak were not only very damning of women but were also very condescending, choosing to stereotype them as either Madonna or whore (Feinman).

When one thinks of the juvenile corrections system, they tend to gender this institution, focusing mainly on young boys. Due to this, one often neglects the thought there are also young girls that are in the system. This may be due to the fact that when compared to young boys within the juvenile corrections system, in previous years the girls consisted of a small portion within in this space. However, according to recent studies, girls in the juvenile system has been rapidly increasing over the last 20 years (Levintova, 2015). This is an issue which needs to be acknowledge due to the fact that young women are caught in this system for starkly contrasting reasons when compared to young males. These reasonings are described in the book Girls in Trouble with the Law by Laurie Schaffner which we will further explore.

Meanwhile, “the number of incarcerated adult women has jumped by a shocking 757% since 1977, at nearly twice the rate of male prisoners” (Harrison & Beck, 2006). “The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a milestone,” explains Kara Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing project in Washington, DC. One of the main reasons why women are being locked up at an alarming rate is a result of a policy of mass incarceration. “Mass incarceration is a rate of incarceration so high that it affects not only the individual offender, but also whole social groups.” (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2011) Pursuing further, another main reason of the increase of incarceration of women are the sentencing policies brought about by the “war on drugs.”