Essay on Criminal Justice and Violent Female Offenders part 2

Essay on  Criminal Justice and Violent Female Offenders part 1

Stacey and Spohn found out consistently more lenient treatment of female offenders, even after they checked and controlled for the presumptive sentence, offender’s marital status, and if the offender has dependent children. They suggest that fact of gender disparity in sentencing is not a product of insufficient controls for related variables or the use of outdated data sets (Stacey, Spohn, 2006).

The effect of the offender’s gender is clearly revealed by the effect of the presumptive sentence. However, the offender’s gender does influence every sentence outcomes examined regardless of the fact it is a legally forbidden basis for judicial and prosecutorial decisions.

Researchers have found out that female offenders are more likely than male offenders to get a downward departure for providing substantial assistance. Besides, female offenders who received that type of departure usually received a larger sentence discount than male offenders in similar situations. All offenders included in the study conducted by Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn, were convicted of drug crimes, which means that substantial assistance departures would have been given primarily to offenders who was able to provide information leading to the arrest and prosecution of other members in their drug distribution network. It seems doubtful that women would have that type of information or that female offenders would be more likely than male ones to be willing to exchange the information they had for a lighter sentence. Prosecutors may use the action for substantial help to mitigate the sentences of sympathetic offenders, no matter whether they have information they are willing to trade; if female drug offenders get more sympathy than male ones, they are more likely to get substantial assistance departures. On the other hand, there is a possibility that female drug offenders have been arrested and prosecuted in court with the expectation that they would give information about the drug-dealing activities of their boyfriends or husbands. This issue should also be studied, as the topic of equality in criminal justice system is of great importance.

Another fact is worth mentioning. While all rehabilitation programs are ready to help all people with criminal past despite their gender, there is a number of programs and services especially for women. For example, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP): Female Offenders provides female offenders with appropriate help to meet the physical, psychological and social needs of this group. National Directory of Programs for Women with Criminal Justice Involvement provides information about programs available in each state that provide assistance and guidance for women involved in the justice system.

Female prisoners constantly attract the attention of the media. However, many experts in the United States say that research in this area is carried out on the insufficient level. Amount of research devoted to the problem of women in prison is just enough to set the existing specific difference in the performance and the serving of sentences in comparison with men. In general, women’s community in the United States is characterized by a smaller prison violence, more harmony, less destructive nature of the subculture as compared to men of the prison community (Nagel, Johnson, 2004).

1. Ward and J. Kassebaum investigated violations in prison related to sexual perversions. As a result, they concluded that in the majority of cases in the women’s community forced sexual contact is absent.

Studies of R. Gialombardo note that in contrast to the male prison community, in women’s prisons mutual sexual relationship characterized by harmony, role-playing family life (mom, dad, daughter, brother, sister) dominate.

1. Heffern studied socio-psychological characteristics of women prisoners in the prison in Columbia. According to the scientist, the women’s prison community is very diverse. She identified three main categories of women prisoners.

For the first category of inmates, prison is a “center of life” in which they are struggling with the administration and other inmates for the right to control the situation and get access to restricted services (alcohol, drugs, extra food, and so on.)

The second category consists of female prisoners who have committed unintentional crime, often murder of passion. Their behavior in prison is characterized by denial of their belonging to the underworld. Throughout incarcerated they are trying to recreate in prison conditions usual for freedom, to actively maintain contact with the outside world.

The third category of women prisoners are “professional criminals”, usually serving criminal sentences for acquisitive or selfish and violent crimes. Their behavior in prison is characterized by the adoption of external rules and regulations established by the administration. However, this behavior is aimed at an early parole for the continuation of the criminal way of life.

Tightening of criminal law in the 1980s had a great impact on the growth of female population in prisons of the United States (since 1984 the number of female convicted increased by 100%, men by 51%). Main number of women has been convicted of theft and crime related to drugs. Sufficient number of women were convicted of the murder of husbands or partners, who were violent to them. Thus, the National Council on Offenses of the United States stated that women’s prisons in the mid-1990s were significantly overcrowded. This fact has contributed to the development of criminal procedural law of a wider range of measures and penalties, non-custodial from society (Samaha, 2008).

It is believed that the majority of female offences does not significantly affect the physical or psycho-social sphere of the person or the society. D. Wagner watched liberated women for 2 years and found that women were 44% less likely than men to commit crime again. According to various sources the number of women who have committed repeated crimes amounts 17% of the total number of women released from prison. While the number of male offenders is approaching 40%. It has also been noted that women commit far fewer crimes if they are in the focus of attention of various community-based services (social, psychological, medical, and others.). The majority of female prisoners have serious economic, medical, psychological and social problems. Especially these problems are exacerbated and come to the attention only in prison.

Special social programs for women are more effective than imprisonment. In Pennsylvania, for example, the implementation of such programs on female offenders has significantly reduced repeat offenses. Sample of 1,000 people who participated in the program showed a relapse only in 3.2% of cases. Measures such as house arrest, intensive support are also an effective alternative to imprisonment in case of direct exposure. Thus, the modern American penal science focuses not on punitive, but humanistic traditions in the correction of female convicts.

Ethics

Criminality of women and its prevention is most acute at the moment, because according to statistics there is a steady increase in female crime in our country. Many scientists have set a goal to explain the phenomenon of female criminality. Scientific community is still debating regarding the psychological or innate biological nature of female criminality, its exogenous or endogenous.

Endogenous theory of crime explains the phenomenon of women’s criminalization based on psychogenetic factors. It is known that one of the founders of criminology Cesare Lombroso suggested mental predisposition of women to commit crimes. Thus, even the occasional criminals, in his opinion, “discover because of the conditions of life, the fraction of moral perversion, which is peculiar to every woman who is in her ordinary conditions in a latent state” (Samaha, 2008).

Supporters of biological criminology perceive causes of female crime in the physiological and biological characteristics of human. In particular, some scholars of the school explain female aggressiveness through hromosomnogonabora anomalies. Thus, in the normal condition sex chromosomes of women should be of the form “XX” and of a man “XY”. Scientists believe that the cause of female aggression lies in the presence of the chromosome of “XXY” set in some women, ie that they have the “extra” male chromosome. Authors of endocrine biological theories find the origins of aggression in the anomalies functioning of the endocrine glands and the development of an increased amount of substances that cause nervousness and aggression, such as testosterone.

However, a direct correlation between the number of criminal convictions and biological inclinations of women haven’t been found. It is likely that the biological inclinations effect female criminality in an indirect way: particular qualities of the physiology of women are responsible for their role in society and have thus an impact on the behavior of women, including their criminal behavior and violence.

Factors that are considered to be causes of female crime, can be divided into four groups:

1) adverse processes in the field of culture, changing the concept of women’s culture, its replacement by a variety of substitutes;

2) socio-political situation in the country;

3) professional activities of women;

4) family life and domestic sphere;

The first group of factors include:

• underestimation of the importance of traditional women’s society functions (the birth and upbringing of children, housekeeping)
• priority of male activities (civil service, industry, commerce);
• depravity of the women’s movement that encourages women to perform male functions.

These factors lead to a gradual loss of women’s culture phenomena such as femininity, meek​​, tenderness, mercy.

The second group could includes:

• increased criminality culture imposed on the media;
• economic crisis, low level of life, unemployment (and the proportion of women among overall unemployed is around 70%);
• criminal rationalism of being, i.e. limiting the possibility of certain groups of population to provide a normal life by legal means;
• insecurity, which provokes drug addiction and alcoholism.

We should also mention the international conflicts, which represent one of the most criminogenic phenomena. As a result of armed conflicts, women lose their husbands, relatives, place of living. Single women and girls are often subjected to abuse, resulting usually with severe psychological trauma, which significantly reduces the ability to control committed actions.

Generating female criminality factors associated with work (the third group) include:

• deficiencies of legal regulation of women’s work (employment problems, inadequate working conditions, lower than men wages);
• lack of social support for working women (inadequate protection of labor, lack of child care and employee social benefits).

Factors related to the family and household sphere (fourth group) are:

• family conflicts (in the parent or own family);
• negative impact of the husband or cohabiting partner (incitement to crime);
• lack of permanent residence;
• aggressive advertising of beautiful and fashionable clothes, which combined with the low standard of living creates motivation to commit acquisitive crime.

Speaking of female criminal motivation, it should be noted that under normal conditions, women do not tend to commit crimes. Usually dramatic circumstances of their own life push them to the criminal acts and violence. Undoubtedly, approach of division of crime based on gender makes sense, as both quantitative and qualitative content of female criminality has its own peculiarities and differences than male crime. With regard to the quantitative features and differences, for centuries female criminality has always been much inferior than men’s one. The modern pace and style of life force women to take on traditionally male function, which leads to the perception of the elements of male culture, enabling them to assert themselves, but leaves deep psychological frustration and guilt. Hence the feeling of hostility of the world, uncertainty, and as a result, the likely protective aggression, bitterness, social maladjustment.

Modern society is constantly developing, social and political attitudes are changing, previously recognized in our society values and moral are replaced by new ones, spiritual culture falls, traditions and customs are broken, the role of woman as a house person changes. The ratio of the level of crime committed by women, to the level of crimes committed by men, equals 1:6. This is despite the fact that the number of women in the country is higher than the number of men (Greenfeld, Snell, 1999).

With regard to the qualitative features and differences, we should note that the statistics show that the ratio of selfish and violent crimes, and other crimes committed by women is different from the situation of men. There are crimes with reflected pattern, formed under the influence of a particular characteristic specifically for women nature or situation in a certain period. The character of changes of female crime does not always coincide with altered male crime.

All these factors have a definite impact on female crime and the forms of its manifestation.  It is known that women are more exposed, both physically and mentally weaker than men. But at the same time, women are faster and easier to adapt to the rapidly changing realities of life. Criminality of women is different from men’s crime in nature of the crime and its consequences, and in the methods and tools of the crime and the choice of the victim and the confluence of family circumstances. Crimes of women are different from crimes committed by men, they are more emotional, rash. The most common among women are crimes of theft of personal, state and public property, this category of crimes is 15% of the total crime committed by women.

Infanticide is a typical crime for women. Recently there has been an upward trend in this category of crimes, especially clearly this trend is manifested in the countryside. Noteworthy is also the prevalence of violent crime among female prisoners, according to statistics, 2% of women are persons convicted of murder and attempted murder, 3% – convicted of grievous bodily harm, more than 4% – for robbery and aggravated assault in order to capture state, public and personal property.

Women most often commit robberies in urban areas, this is due to the fact that cities have more shops, foodservice.  Besides, the larger number of population in urban areas played an important role, since the great mass of the population makes it difficult to reveal this category of crime. Among women, who commit robbery, there are a lot of females, who commit this type of crime constantly, vagrants and beggars who have no permanent residence. This category of offenders is the most difficult one in terms of conducting variety of activities for the prevention of crimes and criminals correction.

Essay on  Criminal Justice and Violent Female Offenders part 3

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