Why do men receive harsher sentences than women?
- Women are seen as accessories to crime
- Judges persuaded by women and their circumstances
- 10-year difference in sanctions
- 63% difference in sentencing for the same crime
- Women seen as mentally unstable
- Women are the primary caregivers (90% lone parent families headed by a woman)
Pollak
- Pollak (1950) argued that the idea of men committing more crime than women is a myth
- Pollak says women are compelled to commit certain crimes due to their hormones and menstrual cycles causing emotional disturbance and low self esteem
- He believes women are biologically more deviant (‘biologically devious’) as they can conceal menstruation, easily fake orgasms, and take on a passive role in society
- Pollak says women use their home environment to conceal crimes and have professions like maids, nurses, and teachers so that they can engage in undetectable domestic crime
- He believes manipulate men to commit crime for them – they are often the mastermind behind crimes and avoid arrest as male partners take the blame
Chivalry Thesis
- This is the argument that the male-dominated CJS has a paternalistic attitude towards women, seeing them as vulnerable, child-like and not fully responsible for their actions
- This may lead to police giving females warnings/cautions and judges treating them more leniently
- For example, Speed and Burrows (2006) found in shoplifting cases male offenders are twice as likely to receive a sentence than a female (30% to 15%)
Evil Woman Theory
When women commit serious offences, going against stereotypes, women are labelled as monsters
Klein (Challenging Chivalry Thesis)
Argues that chivalry is classist and racist and only applicable to white middle class women as they are seen as ‘ladies’
Heidensohn (Challenging Chivalry Thesis)
Says women who conform to feminine behaviour (crying/maternal love) are treated more leniently, but those who don’t are treated more severely
Carlen (Challenging Chivalry Thesis)
Stated that a female’s role of a mother is also taken into account more than a male’s role as a father in sentencing
Hedderman and Gunby
Interviewed judges and magistrates involved in sentencing, and found that there was an awareness that female offenders often have more complex problems
They stated much female crime is related to domestic abuse and single parenthood and these factors being taken into account may be completely appropriate and not ‘chivalry’ at all
Chesney-Lind
Argues that female deviance tends to be ‘sexualised’
She found more girls than boys were sent to ‘training schools’ and charged with ‘immorality’
Myra Hindley (Case Study)
- Myra Hindley was involved in the kidnapping and killing of five children in the early 1960s
- Evidence showed her boyfriend, Ian Brady, was the driving force behind the killings
- However, Hindley was labelled ‘the most evil woman in Britain’
- She was never released from prison and died in 2002
- Biographer of Hindley, Jean Ritchie, suggested that if Hindley had played her part in the original trial differently, she may have been treated less harshly by the CJS and the media
