The Treatment Of Women Within The Criminal Justice System

When the criminal justice system was established, the main objective was to create neutrality and fairness between the sexes. Even though people might believe that there is no such thing as ‘stereotyping’ in the criminal justice system, it is quite obvious that women are constantly being look down upon because of their sex. In general, women tend to be treated like fragile objects that could break at any moment; the truth is that women can be strong and courageous just like men. Society stereotypes women and the criminal justice system is no different.

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

Brym, R.J., & Lie, J., & Rytina, S. (2010) Deviance and Crime. Sociology: Your Compass for a New World. 3rd Canadian Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Toronto: Nelson

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.

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).

The acceptance that the court system often treats female offenders differently than male offenders is an accurate statement; however, it comes with many caveats. Generally, the public views women as nurturers, motherly and incapable of

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.

With regards to female sentences, it can be seen on the one hand that the criminal justice system deals with female crimes more leniently than with male criminality, as referred to as the chivalry theory (Pollok, 1983). As many female offences are usually petty wrongdoings, such as shoplifting which makes up for nearly a half of all indictable convictions (Ministry of Justice, 2014), due to their gender, it is most likely that females are to be cautioned over receiving a prison sentence. However, this was not the case for Maxine Carr in 2003. A whirlwind of media interest surrounding Carr’s involvement, with the murders of two young girls from Soham, is argued to be the definitive reason as to why Carr received a prison sentence of three years, all for perverting the course of justice.

The reason is that females were considered to be good candidates for rehabilitation. The suggestion is that female offenders were viewed as less dangerous than male offenders. Overtime, gender has led to women being protected and punished. The earlier notion of women-centeredness of women’s prisons no longer exists. There is more emphasis on a criminal being a criminal. At the same time, males still suffer harsher penalties compared to females within the criminal justice system.

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.

Women role in criminal justice system had always been a problem, the topic sexual harassment had always existed in every women's life. Women age had never change a women from being harassed, no matter how old or how young the women is they should all been experience sexual harassment once in their life. I had seen many video had a done a experiment of different aged women walking down the street in their normal everyday cloth and during that video the women had got many catcall from different guy no matter they are a mom or a teen. Those experience are just many of the women are facing each day in their life, but don’t what to do about it and sometime it can also led to something danger as to suicide.

In conclusion, “Mouse on a String at the Prison for Women” by George Caron is a fascinating account of life behind bars for female offenders at P4W. Discussing female criminality, one cannot stop mentioning their lives after being sentenced. Thus, it is important to look at incarcerated female offenders as a unique subset of the offending population and should be treated as such. This is why Caron’s memoir is important as it allows the reader to get a glimpse into how gender intersects with our understanding of crime and the criminal justice

Statistics show that the number of female offenders in the legal system has been increasing steadily. The number of female offenders entering the American justice system is growing at a rate faster than males. Statistics from the United States in 2010 show the female offender population to be increasing by 2.7% each year, compared to the male population at a rate of 1.8% each year, with similar statistics being seen in other Western countries (West & Sabol, 2010). The continued increase has made understanding female offenders and their catalysts for committing crime more imperative.

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.