The Invisible Women : Gender, Crime And Justice

Gender and Crime Sex is commonly used to describe the innate biological characteristics of humans constituting their femaleness or maleness. Gender on the other hand, covers the social characteristics and usages associated with one sex or the other. Since such roles and customs can vary and be modified it follows that masculine and feminine the terms applied to the respective genders are much more flexible than female and male. In order to cover the subject of gender and crime it is important to explain its prehistory and standing as well as addressing the extensive material which appeared in the modern

In the multi-faceted dynamics of gender, the declaration of gender neutral is often in fact male oriented and dominated sexism. Gender roles are perhaps reinforced more strongly in law enforcement than any other of our societal systems. Consequently, the hegemonic masculinity (HM) of our patriarchal society has kept men and women in their place (Goodey, 1997), this male dominance that negatively impacts a female’s ability to advance in society appears to play a dual role of discrimination within the criminal justice system. Informal control of keeping women within their gender increases [the perception] of the likelihood of their being law abiding citizens, which may be why we see women being arrested for more incidents of prostitution and

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

The Elizabeth Fry society in an organization created to work with women in each stage of the criminal justice process. The three stages referred to within this organization are women who are at risk, are involved in the criminal justice system, and recovery and transition from institutions, to effectively reintegrate back into society (Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver, 2012). The organization was established by Elizabeth Fry, 1839, who was deemed a significant advocate for humane treatment of women, specializing in women and children regarding treatment within the criminal justice system (Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Society, 2013). Furthermore, this individual’s insight, and persistence in asserting a role as an

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.

Criminality is still assumed to be a masculine characteristic and women lawbreakers are therefore observed to be either ‘not women’ or ‘not criminals’ (Worrall 1990, p. 31). Female offenders are hallmarked for tireless and inescapable coverage if they fit into the rewarding newsworthy categories of violent or sexual. It is always important to note the reason for overrepresentation of women criminals in the media. “Women who commit serious offences are judged to have transgressed two sets of laws: criminal laws and the laws of nature” (Jewkes 2011, p. 125). Such women are hence “doubly deviant and doubly damned” (Lloyd, 1995). When women commit very serious crimes, such as murder, they attract

For countless years now, women have been struggling for equal rights in society. I chose to write my essay on the topic of women in prison because they need support but often overlooked by society. These women go through many obstacles like mental health, sexual harassment, and inequality. The number of females in prison is currently rising every day, in spite of the fact that men still the leading numbers in jail. Women are in prison due to different causes many are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes. Simply because they need to survive in a society that is very sexist and racist. It's hard to find a stable job that's why some females support their families by becoming a prostitute, steal or sell drugs. Once incarcerated, women not only have limited access to job coaching programs, education and several other services they are also sexually abused. Basically, inside prison females go through the same discrimination and abuse they go through outside.

During the late nineteenth-century, women went to court to continue to secure their rights to participate in public life: to vote, to be a justice of the peace, to be a notary public, to serve as school district directors, school committee officers, school officers, and prosecuting attorneys, an of course to practice law (Drachman, 1998).

It would be foolish to assert that gender plays no role in the criminal justice system, just as it would be equally foolish to say that race plays no role in this system either. Covington and Bloom cite the work of Kivel (1992) in reminding all that "Where sexism is prevalent, one of the gender dynamics frequently found is that something declared genderless or gender neutral is, in fact, male oriented. The same phenomenon occurs in terms of race in a racist society, where the term "race neutral" generally means white" (2003). The criminal justice system reflects the needs of men and the values of men in a highly patriarchal society; the issue becomes more complicated when some scholars argue that women should fight for equal rights in all areas of life, including the criminal justice system, arguing that while equal treatment might hurt women in the short run, in the long run, it's the best policy for women (Covington & Bloom, 2003). On the other hand, opposing groups argue that women are inherently different from men and that insisting on equality will always create a situation where women lose out (Covington & Bloom, 2003). This debate creates an uncertain situation about how women should be treated in the criminal justice system and whether gender should play a role accounting for differential treatment.

While most of the violent crimes that happens most are them are belongs to men, women have not been the wilting flowers promoted so heartily by Victorian adorers and (right or wrong) often evident in today's society. Before we get into detail about the fascinating phenomenon of the Black Widow, it is worth a brief overview of women's escalating role in the world of violent crime, particularly in the United States.

According to Lilly, Cullen, and Ball (232) Feminist theory has been on the back burner of modern criminology until the late 19th century. As with the other criminology theories there are many thoughts and ideas on why females commit crimes. In the beginning the theories seem to revolve around the victimization of the female gender. Then criminologist took a look at female delinquency, prostitution, and gender inequality in the criminal justice system. Lilly (233) wrote that Lombroso used physiological traits to determine what type of women would commit crime. Lombroso also argued that the women that committed the most crime were more masculine then the women who did not commit crime. He used physiological immobility, and passivity to make the argument. Lilly (235) also wrote that Sigmund Freud believed the reason women committed crime was because they has “penis envy”. Since women were physical different than men, women would become more aggressive trying to act like the male counterpart in order to fit in with the status quo.

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 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).

Most of the theories of crime was developed to explain male crimes by male criminologists. For decades, women offending challenges traditional theoretical explanations of crime, which were developed to explain male offenders. There were a few debates that indicate the concern of whether the theories were being used equally to explain both female and male crime. Criminologists came to a conclusion that the traditional theories are male-specific theories. For that particular reason, they argue that those theories are not suitable to explain female crimes. However, both the social process and traditional structure theories explain a gender neutrality in crime. They also give a better understanding for both male and female crime.