Women’s pains of punishment: Experiences of female offenders serving community sentences in Lithuania

Using the concept of ‘pains of punishment’, the article analyses the experiences of Lithuanian women serving community sentences. Our study demonstrates that women experience the universal pains of punishment associated with stigmatisation, shame, and the inconveniences caused by punishment, as well as constraints and anxieties about impending imprisonment. Furthermore, the complex context of their social environment (relationships with partners, children, and other loved ones) contributes to these pains. In contrast to some previous studies, the Lithuanian women’s experiences do not fall under the category of ‘demanding clients’ since the research participants do not think of the Probation Service as an institution that could meet their needs and provide them with assistance.

Sexual Victimization Involving Solo Female Offenders: A Crime Script Approach

This study aims to provide a theoretically grounded analysis of the crime-commission process of solo females involved in sexual offending, using crime scripts. The sample includes 93 cases of sexual assaults perpetrated by female offenders in an extrafamilial context. Latent class analysis was used to identify the scripts involved in female sexual offending as well as to explore the relationship between each step of the crime-commission process. Also, additional variables related to victim, offender, and location characteristics were used to test the external validity of the model. Results suggest four different scripts used by females: Daytime Indoor, Coercive Outdoor, Coercive Indoor, and Nighttime Indoor. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Myth of Madness: Murderous Mothers and Maternal Infanticide

The sex-specific doctrine of infanticide provides a merciful method of dealing with women who kill their newborn children in circumstances of psychological distress. This article examines the contentious medical rationale which underpins infanticide legislation with the purpose of providing a substantiated argument for the abolition of this antiquated doctrine. Specifically, a two-pronged approach is taken. First, by utilising the views of contemporary medical science, the scientific credibility of the medical rationale is scrutinised. Second, by drawing upon feminist legal theory, a myriad of concerns associated with the medicalisation of female offenders are critically discussed. Ultimately, it is suggested that the offence/defence of infanticide should be abolished and that crimes of this nature should be readily subsumed under the current partial defence of diminished responsibility.

Experiencing Shame: How Does Gender Affect the Interpersonal Dynamics of Restorative Justice?

Although reintegrative shaming theory suggests that, in comparison to males, females are more interdependent and thus susceptible to reintegrative rather than disintegrative shaming, it is unclear how gender affects the type of shame experienced when considering interpersonal dynamics within restorative justice conferences. The involvement of the community within these conferences may affect how offenders are viewed, especially when considering the stigma female offenders experience for violating legal and gender norms. Using data from the Reintegrative Shaming Experiments, we find that interdependency conditions how gender affects the experience of shaming based on the type of others with whom offenders are interdependent.

RATE OF FEMALE CRIMINALITY CAN BE REDUCED BY INCREASING THE RATE OF EDUCATION

Female criminality has always been a subjectwhich is generally not discussed because of less number of women indulge in crimes but recent years told us the story in other way. They are still not at par with men but that does not mean they need not to be focused upon. A girl child in a country like India consider as parayadhan grows up in the protection of her father and brothers then to her husbands after marriage. Many times she becomes victim because of broken families, physical or mental assault which turns her into a victim and then to a criminal the quick example of which is of Phoolan Devi. We may trace the presence of women in heinous crimes as well though it is a very small in number but on reciting their facts cried out not to be ignored like in Shabnamcase who could be the first woman to be hanged after the independence of India. In the following research in the light of various theories and reasons of female criminality we have tried to establish that the rate of female criminality can be reduce by increasing the rate of female literacy. Education not only helps in reducing the number of crimes but also helps to reform and rehabilitate female offenders after their release.