Women Of The Criminal Justice System

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).

For numerous years, prison officials applied the same type of treatment for men and women. In the last decade with the increasing number of women incarcerated, research shows that women have different physical and emotional needs. For example, women are more attached to their children that they are leaving behind, and some have histories of physical and mental abuse. The creation of two programs, Key Crest and Forever Free were created to help with women specific issues. Recent studies done by National Institute of Justice studies found that participants in these two programs stayed drug and arrest free for over three years. Participants were tested and interviewed once a year for three years. The studies also showed that the programs provided aftercare and treatment in areas that were not addressed in previous years. Even though both varied in their approach, they both recognized the many ways there were to treat the needs of women and how they differ from men. The studies also show that gender specific programs do help inmates reenter into society.

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!

Aboriginal women face disproportionate challenges throughout their incarceration which impacts their successful community reintegration. Over the last ten years, inmate assaults involving Aboriginal women have exponentially grown, almost doubling, while use of force incidents have more than tripled. Rates of self-injury involving incarcerated Aboriginal women are seventeen times higher than that of non-Aboriginal women. To agree with Baldry, Carlton, and Cunneen, using Indigenous women as a focus point is beneficial because their "experiences embody and exemplify the intersections between colonial and neocolonial oppression and the multiple sites of gender and disadvantage and inequality that stem from patriarchal domination." Cunneen highlights that Indigenous women actually live in "many prisons"; the prison of misunderstanding; the prison of misogyny; and the prison of disempowerment. Patricia Monture insists that one way women can resist oppression and facilitate social change is by telling their own stories. The Task Force for Federally Sentenced Women developed a report called Creating Choices, which attempted to relocate the power to make choices in womens' lives out of the hands of prison officials and back to the women themselves because, according to the findings of the Task Force, it is only when people are treated with respect and when they are empowered can they take responsibility for their actions and make meaningful decisions. Monture-Okanee reflects on the irony of the final report

The Committee has heard mixed testimony about whether alternative justice approaches are appropriate for domestic violence cases. In Iqaluit, witnesses told the Committee that Elders rarely ask that people be removed from communities, but prefer to deal with the accused as part of a family unit and as part of the community. Melanie Nimmo, assistant professor in Criminal Justice, University of Winnipeg, and Member of the Board, John Howard Society of Manitoba, said that their restorative justice program instils accountability on the part of the offender while helping to heal the victim and that 89% of their clients successful complete the program conditions without reoffending.[41] However, other witnesses voiced concerns that restorative and alternative justice practices were not a safe resolution for women who have experienced violence. Witnesses suggested that standards and screening guidelines must be established to ensure that female victims are not re-victimized or put in danger in the process.

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

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.

For the past centuries, women have been fighting for their rights, from their right to vote to equal rights in the workplace. Women resistance is the act of opposing those in power, so women can have a voice in the world. Women in prison are often overlooked. In the 1970s, the women prisoners’ rights movement began, and it is still going on today. The number of incarcerated females is rapidly growing compared to men. According to Victoria Law, a prison rights activist, she stated that the percentage of female prisoners increased 108%. This struggle is significant because women in prison are being silenced; they are the most vulnerable people in our country (Siegal, 1998). Women prisoners have the highest rate of suicide because they are

The perception of the Australian criminal justice system’s legitimacy is determined by the actions of three institutions, and the manner in which they address issues of justice within society. For the criminal justice system to be seen with integrity and valued for its role, it is vital that all members of the community see the appropriate rectification of injustices through the police, courts and corrections. However, particular groups within society encounter the illegitimacy and social inequity embedded within these institutions, diminishing the effectiveness to which they fulfill their role. For women in particular, the institutions of the criminal justice system are notably unethical in their treatment of both victims and perpetrators of crime. Despite many reforms and recommendations for change, the criminal justice system ultimately fails in achieving justice for women, with the courts demonstrating the most significant attempt to eliminate social inequality and victimisation.

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.

Women offenders and workers face many challenges in the increasing privatisation of the criminal justice systems. Private prisons are defined as a government contract that a prison company has to run a prison including rehabilitation and the transition to community management. Although there are different types of privatisation such as the constructing and financing of the person through the purchasing agreements, there is also individual prison services such as medical, welfare, rehabilitation and also the private employment of inmates. The private prions sector is a business that emphasis on making profits where the more prisoners the prison hold the more money the prison would make. As the number of women offenders under criminal justice

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.

The OTP announced a gendered perspective for every crime under the jurisdiction of the Court as well as a priority given to SVGB crimes throughout all the steps of the investigation, from the preliminary examination to the prosecution. Since this policy was announced, only one case, against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, in the first situation in the CAR, included charges of SVGB crimes. The strategy in action can only be examined in that case. However, this section will to provide certain guidelines to what the OTP has ignored since the Court begun functioning in 2002. There are certain changes in the policy that have not been contemplated hitherto and should be mentioned because of their theoretical importance and their practical impact on the Court’s reputation and