Essay on Criminal Justice and Violent Female Offenders

Violent crime is one of the components of the overall structure of crime, which includes offenses related to physical and psychological violence against the person, or the threat of violence. Violent crime, in a broad sense, includes all the acts in which violence is a way to abuse, and, in the narrow sense, it includes only those actions in which violence is one of the elements of criminal motivation.

Violence is defined as: 1) the use of physical force to someone; 2) the use of force, forced impact on someone, something; 3) the harassment, abuse of power, lawless use of force.

Not all violence is a subject of criminology, but only when it is associated with a violation of criminal law (criminal violence). There are two types of such violence:

• Physical abuse – the infliction of physical, bodily harm to the person, up to the deprivation of his life.
• Psychological violence – causing mental, moral damages: threats, insults, slander, blackmail, coercion, and all kinds of restrictions on the freedom of person; and some types of fraud, psycho and economic methods.

Violence is a primary or secondary means of committing so many crimes. Different countries name various groups of violent crimes:

• Statistical Yearbook of the United States at the federal level notes the following types of violent crimes: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault.
• Notifiable Offences recorded by Police of England and Wales include all kinds of crimes against the person, including, for example, an illegal abortion; sexual crimes (including pimping and bigamy) and robberies into the number of violent attacks.
• In Germany, the Collection of crime statistics include murder, rape, robbery, injury, poisoning, hostage-taking and extortion related to the kidnapping into violent crimes.

The share of traditional forms of violent crime in its overall structure is quite small. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of law enforcement is assessed on the basis of estimations of the most serious crimes.

Murder is one of the most ancient and dangerous types of crimes. Murder is a crime in all legal systems, although, there are certain differences in understanding of what should be regarded as murder (Samaha, 2008).

In 2000, the absolute number of murders in the world was more than 500 000. This number in various countries differ greatly. In most developed countries observe 1-4 murders per 100 000 population; the lowest rates were observed in Japan, Iceland, Ireland (about 0.5); the USA is a little above the middle figure (5.5). In developing countries, the murder rate is much higher, it can reach 40-50 per 100 000 population or even higher values.

The most common among sexual offenses involving violence, is rape. Its danger lies in the fact that the victim is inflicted both physical and mental suffering. Rape is often associated with serious lasting effects, including infection with sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness and even suicide of a victim.

8th Review of trends in crime, presented by the United Nations indicates that in 2001 and 2002 in the world, there were registered annually more than 250,000 rape. Characterizing the numbers of rape, it should be noted that rape has a high latency. Even in countries with a highly developed system of law enforcement, more than 80 percent of rapes are hidden from law enforcement agencies (Langton, Truman, 2014).

Robbery is a forcible theft of another’s property. It is an attack the purpose of which is stealing other people’s property, committed with violence dangerous to life or health, or with threat of such violence.

Aggravated assault is a stronger form of assault, often with a use of deadly weapon attempting to cause serious bodily injury to another person, cause grievous bodily harm, such as rape or kidnapping, have sexual relations with an underage person, or cause bodily harm by recklessly operating of a vehicle.

In general, violent crimes are rarely committed by women: there are around 90% of male violent criminals. Women usually resort to domestic violence, especially in connection with the immoral and illegal behavior of the victim – usually a spouse or cohabitant. Violent criminals are usually quite young – less then 40 years old. Crimes, related to the deprivation victim’s life and personal injury, are frequently committed by persons aged 25-29 years, rapes – by persons under 25 years old.

Educational and social levels of violent offenders are lower than that of other categories of offenders and general population. Typically, these individuals have relatively low skills, work in low-paid jobs or do not work.

Violent criminals inherent violation of social identification and adaptation, desociolization. They hardly follow standards of society, instead assessing the situation on the basis of personal beliefs and desires. They are self-centered, have primitive needs and impulsive desire for the realization of desires and needs, not restrained by self-monitoring mechanism. Violations of socialization are manifested in difficulties in establishing contacts with other people. Such persons are characterized by psychological self-defense mechanism: they believe that the actions, they are accused for, have been provoked by victims, and they acted correctly and should not be punished. Intensity of such deviations may be different. There are many psychopaths among criminals (estimates vary from 30 to 60%) and those with borderline mental disorders.

Some scientists believe that forming of personality of violent criminals depends on biological and genetic predisposition. However, commonly accepted viewpoint claims that determination of violent crime, as well as crime in general, has a predominantly social nature: the causes and conditions of crime lie in the society in which it exists (Samaha, 2008).

An important place in the causal complex of many violent crimes is occupied by victim behavior of victims. This is especially characteristic of rape, where a substantial part of the victims themselves provokes criminal sexual contact (usually frivolous behavior in the situation related to the joint use of alcohol with the rapist.

Literature Review

Female criminality has always been perceived as a less serious issue than male criminal behavior. Historically, females tend to commit minor crimes and have amounted only a small proportion in total number of offenders. Ten though women remain a relatively small amount of all prisoners, there is a trend in rising of percentage among female offenders, their participation in crimes connected with violent, and have inhibited the increase of gender-specific programs addressing the problem (Greenfeld, Snell, 1999).

Female offenders have different needs comparing to males, stemming in part from their own disproportionate victimization from physical or sexual abuse and their sense of responsibility for dependant children. Besides, they are more likely to have drug addiction and to have mental illnesses (Morash, Bynum, Koons, 1998).

In general, younger females’ delinquent acts usually have less chronic and less serious character in comparison with boys. Minor offenses dominate among female criminals. However, minor crimes may mask serious problems that girls are facing. Running away from parents’ home and other status offenses are the main components of girls’ delinquency. Even though their offense behavior may appear to be not very serious, such girls may be suffering from serious problems and victimization, involving illegal behavior by relatives. That, in turn, can make them open to subsequent victimization and engage in other types of behavior that violates the law such as prostitution, survival sex and drug use (Heidensohn, Silvestri, 2012).

Many risk factors contribute to females’ criminal behavior, including substance abuse, spousal abuse and mental illness. One of the most significant risk factors is considered to be prior victimization (Morash, Bynum, Koons, 1998).

The Federal Bureau of Investigation with the help of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program collects crime and arrest statistics from more than 18,000 city, county, and state law enforcement agencies. Crime in the United States, 2012 released in November 2013 reveals the information that, during 2012:

• In the whole country, law enforcement made 12,196,959 arrests (traffic violations are not included).
• 2% of them were of females (“Women and Girls in the Justice System,” 2014).

According to OJJDP’s (the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s) Juvenile Court Statistics 2010, released in June 2013:

• Courts with juvenile jurisdiction held an estimated 1,368,200 law-breaking cases in 2010.
• 28% of them were with female offenders.
• In general, female delinquency caseload raised at an average rate of 2 percent per year between 1985 and 2010, while the average rate increased for less than 1 percent per year for males (“Women and Girls in the Justice System,” 2014).

According to the resource of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Jail Inmates at Midyear 2013 – Statistical Tables, which shows data collected from the Annual Survey of Jails, the number of female convicts increased by 10.9% between midyear 2010 and 2013. In same period, the male inmate population declined for 4.2%.

According to OJJDP’s 2011 Survey of Youth in Residential Placement, females amounted 14% of all youth in residential placement (Ginder, 2014).

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Annual Probation Survey and Annual Parole Survey provide total number of all persons supervised in the community and counts of the number entering and leaving supervision during the year on all the territory of the USA. According to provided information:

• In 2012, approximately 24 percent of the adults on probation were female
• In 2012, approximately 11% of the adults on parole were female
• In 2010, nearly 19% of the federal offenders under supervision were female

Based on self-reports of violence victims, women represent about 14 percent among all violent offenders, which is an average of around 2.1 million of violent female offenders per year.

There is 1 violent offender in every 9 men of 10 years old or older, a per capita rate six times that among women. In 1998, 3 out of 4 violent female criminals committed simple assault. About 28 percent of violent female offenders were juveniles, and 3 out of 4 victims of female offenders’ violence were women. Around two out of three victims had some kind of prior relationship with a female offender. An estimated four in ten women who committed violent offences were perceived by their victims as being drunk and/or under drugs while committing the crime. The per capita rate for murders committed by females in 1998 was on the lowest point recorded since 1976. In 1998, approximately 3.2 million women were arrested, considering for about 22 percent of all arrests that year. And the per capita rate in arrest among juvenile women was about twice the adult female rate. It is worth mentioning that between 1990 and 1998, the number of the female defendants, who were convicted of felonies in courts of the United States grew at more than twice the rate of growth among male defendants. In 1998, the number of women that were under the care, supervision, or control of correctional agencies amounted 950,000. Parole agencies or probation supervised 85 percent of these criminals in the community. Women under the supervision of agencies of criminal justice system were mothers of about 1.3 million minor children. Nearly six in ten women in American prisons had experienced sexual or physical abuse in the past. Around 84,000 women were imprisoned in 1998 (Greenfeld, L. A., Snell, 1999).

There have been noted some substantial differences in behavior and treatment of defendants in courts on the basis of their gender. Criminologist Frances Heidensohn says that judges and juries often have difficulties in isolating the fact that the defendant is a woman and the fact that she also can be a mother, a widow, she can be attractive, or she may cry on the stand. Besides, male and female defendants note that in court they have been encouraged to behave differently in accordance with the gender; women have been advised to show “mute passivity,” at the same time men have been advised to “assert themselves” in testimony and cross-examinations (Heidensohn, Silvestri, 2012).

There are two thoughts on the issue if criminal justice system has a gender bias and if men and women are treated differently in courts and police.

The first one is chivalry thesis, where chivalry is treating others, mostly women with courtesy, respect and sympathy. According to chivalry theory women are treated more leniently by the system of criminal justice than men. Male chivalry means that often police are less likely to charge females, and courts tend to give them a lighter sentence, even in situations when they have committed the same crimes as men.

The second theory is called double deviance theory. According to this theory, criminal justice system treats women more harshly because they are guilty of being doubly deviant. They deviated from norms accepted by society by breaking the law and, at the same time, deviated from gender norms, which tell how woman should behave.

Many female offenders feel that they have been treated harshly by the system of criminal justice. They perceive it as a male-dominated institution and feel their treatment has been unjust and unsympathetic (Heidensohn, Silvestri, 2012).

After arrest, women more often than men are cautioned instead of being charged. They are usually not committed for trial or remanded in custody. Female offenders have more chances to be discharged or to be given a community sentence than men and less likely to be sentenced to prison or fined. Often, women sent to prison get shorter sentences than men. This information suggests that the system of criminal justice does treat woman more leniently. Though, we also need to take into account the seriousness of committed crime and difference in crime history. Female offences are usually less serious and women are less likely to have criminal records (Bryant, 2011).

Disparity in the treatment of criminals involved in the system of criminal justice has been the subject of a substantial number of research over the past decades. Probably, the most compelling evidence of inequality is found in the demographics among the convicts in federal and state prisons in the United States. Most of prisoners in our nation’s prisons are men, mostly black or Hispanic. These disparities in imprisonment rates, which have been noted for more than three decades, have made researchers to focus on the sentencing stage while criminal justice process. They also have led policymakers to search for ways in order to constrain judicial discretion while sentencing (Stacey, Spohn, 2006).

Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn wrote the work in B Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law “Gender and the Social Costs of Sentencing: An Analysis of Sentences Imposed on Male and Female Offenders in Three U.S. District Courts”. The studies show that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to receive harsher sentences than whites in similar situation, and that the sentences imposed on female offenders, including violent female offenders, are substantially more lenient than the ones imposed on their male counterparts.

Studies note that gender effects of favoring female offenders over male ones occur at a significantly higher percentage than race effects of favoring white offenders over the black ones. There is one explanation for this, which suggests that women are more likely to be sentenced more leniently than men because they are often convicted of less serious offences and have less serious criminal records. Another explanation reveal judges percept women as childlike and dependent, and they want to protect women from the severity of jail or prison.

These explanations of gender disparity in sentencing show how important it is to control adequately for legally related indicators of crime seriousness and prior criminal record, along with the importance of taking into consideration potential connections between the gender of the offender and other legally irrelevant characteristics of the offender. We focus on interactions between the gender of the offender, his/her marital status, offender’s responsibility for dependent children, and the severity of offender’s sentence (Langton, Truman, 2014).

Studies, conducted by Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn found that judges and prosecutors take the gender of the offender into account, while sentencing decisions are not affected by the offender’s marital status or responsibility for dependent children. Besides, females with dependent children are usually treated about the same compared to similarly situated men with dependent children in terms of length of the imposed sentence and the scale of substantial support departures. Nevertheless, although women with children were notably more likely than women without children to get substantial assistance departures, men with children didn’t get same benefit.

Researchers on sentencing in federal and state courts found that female offenders were treated more leniently than male criminals. The study show, that female offenders, including violent crimes, have received approximately ten months shorter sentences than the sentences imposed on male offenders in similar situation. Women also were significantly more likely than men to get a downward departure for providing substantial assistance.

Essay on  Criminal Justice and Violent Female Offenders part 2

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