Offenders and Enforcers: Women in Criminal Justice

Women’s representation in the U.S. criminal justice system can take many forms. Women are offenders and victims. Women are also present in all areas of law enforcement consisting of local police officers, deputies, various state law enforcement, Coast Guard, military personnel and federal officers. Women encompass all aspects of the court system ranging from defense attorneys to prosecutors, municipal court judges to county court judges, district court judges to federal judges, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. Women also work in the prison system as correctional officers and wardens. The focus of this article is women as offenders as well as enforcers of the law. When most people in the United States think of criminal offenders, the first image that comes to mind is usually not a woman. Unless a case is sensationalized such as a female high school teacher sleeping with a student, most crimes committed by women go relatively unnoticed by the public. Despite the general lack of awareness, female offenders do exist and have been on the rise in the past few decades. From 1990 to 1999, for example, women’s felony convictions increased at twice the rate of men’s (Sandler & Freeman, 2011). In 2006 women in U.S. pris­ ons had an incarceration rate of 123 per 100,000 of the fe­ male population. In 2007 women composed 12.9% of the jail population, an increase from 10.8% in 1996 (Weiss, Hawkins, & Despinos, 2010). However, despite the in­ crease in overall convictions of female offenders, the gender gap in arrests and convictions for violent crimes and rape remained unchanged from 1980 to 2003, where 90% of all arrests were male (Sandler & Freeman, 2011). Research over the past 30 years has found gender to be more influential in disposition and sentencing deci­ sions than any other factor such as race, age, or ethnicity (Sandler & Freeman, 2011). “Consistently, these studies have shown that female offenders are less likely than male counterparts to be arrested and convicted of offences, and once convicted, female offenders receive a milder sen­ tence than male offenders” (Sandler & Freeman, 2011, p. 62). A popular theory to explain why women receive differential treatment by the criminal justice system is paternalistic chivalry. According to this theory, men have a desire to protect women and as such, are unwill­ ing to inflict harm upon them. “Traditional stereotypes portray women as passive, weak, childlike and fickle and, therefore, less culpable than men and less responsible for their behavior” (Sandler & Freeman, 2011, p. 63). Sev­ eral separate studies in the late 1980s found that female offenders were treated more harshly than male offenders only when their offences violated traditional gender role expectations such as fondling a child and child abduction (Sandler & Freeman, 2011). However, the most recent study conducted by Sandler and Freeman (2011) found that female sex offenders still receive more lenient sen­ tences than male sex offenders. A possible explanation is that recent research has shown that female sex offenders have significantly lower recidivism rates than their male counterparts. Perhaps because judges and prosecutors intuitively grasp this finding, they may often treat female sex offenders as posing a lower risk to society and recom­ mend or give more lenient sentences (Ahola, Christian­ son, & Hellström, 2009). The type of woman usually sentenced to prison is of concern. The majority are young, minority, single, and un­ employed. They have used drugs or alcohol regularly be­ fore their arrest and have histories of physical and sexual abuse (Weiss et al., 2010). A great deal of research on fe­ male offenders shows that childhood trauma is often the first important marker of both substance abuse and crime (Caputo, 2009). While childhood trauma is also a factor in male offenders, female offenders tend to suffer higher rates of abuse, especially sexual abuse. “Over half of all women prisoners have experienced some form of abuse; more than one­third experienced sexual abuse” (Shelden, Brown, Miller, & Fritzler, 2008, p. 383). In 1999 the Bu­ reau of Justice estimated that child sexual abuse for female offenders was between 23–37%, while abuse among male Offenders and Enforcers: Women in Criminal Justice 2 • PB&J vol. 4 no. 1 offenders ranged from 6–15%. According to G. A. Caputo (2009), a national study conducted in 2000 found that girls who used drugs more often reported histories of physical and sexual abuse more than other girls, suggesting drugs are used as a coping mechanism for the abused. A sepa­ rate study found that female substance abusers were much more likely to have been emotionally, physically, and sexu­ ally abused than male substance abusers (Caputo, 2009). In addition to being abused as children, women who wit­ nessed their mothers victimized by domestic violence were also found to have a higher risk of substance abuse. “Research has effectively made the case that trauma dur­ ing childhood places girls at risk for de linquency, drug use, and criminality later in life. Women in crime have higher rates of trauma than do other women” (Caputo, 2009, p. 17). Childhood sexual abuse is a significant contribut­ ing factor among female sex workers. A study conducted in San Francisco in 1982 found that 61% of the female sex workers had experienced childhood sexual abuse (Ca­ puto, 2009). Caputo (2009) compared the types of abuse for women convicted of sex work and those convicted of shoplifting. She found that although shoplifters and sex workers share some similarities in their early life experi­ ences, such as living in homes with alcohol abuse, there were some major differences. Sex workers reported higher rates of co­occurring traumas, such as violence between caretakers, drug and alcohol abuse among caretakers, and childhood sexual abuse. Shoplifters experienced far less life trauma than sex workers. Another pathway into the criminal justice system for many women involves the men in their lives. The majority of women who commit murder kill someone they know intimately. Several stud­ ies have shown that anywhere from 40% to 78% of women convicted of murder had experienced abuse and fit the bat­ tered woman syndrome (Shelden et al., 2008). A relatively new and controversial concept, battered woman syndrome describes a woman who was the victim of multiple cycles of battering, experienced significant psychological abuse, was unable to place responsibility on anyone but herself, and eventually responds violently, perhaps in defense, at her former abuser or a would be abuser (Walker, 2006). Researchers coined the term “double victim” to describe women who have been victimized by their partners but then who are subject to the criminal justice system that ex­ cludes evidence of this past victimization, forcing juries to convict the woman (Liotta, 2011). Under these conditions there are few, if any, counsel­ ors to assist these women who lack education and work skills; thus, many women released from jail return to com­ munities that are not able to address their needs. As the women return to their communities, they are likely to re­ turn to activities that prompted their incarceration and thus are at an increased risk of returning to jail or prison (Weiss et al., 2010). The majority of women in prison are mothers with two or more children; about two thirds of women living with their children at the time of arrest were single parents. “Incarcerating a mother is significantly more likely to disrupt the children’s lives than the incarceration of a father. Children with incarcerated mothers, far more so than those with incarcerated fathers, are likely to be sent to live with another relative, to live alone, or to enter the foster system” (Liotta, 2011, p. 259). A focus group study of both men and women found that the most significant factors that facilitated or blocked successful reintegration into communities consisted of substance use, employ­ ment, and housing (Weiss et al., 2010). Due to the high cost of reincarceration, investigation into what works in preventing it among women is important. One such study found that state­sponsored support to address short term needs, such as housing, reduced the odds of recidivism by 83% (Weiss et al., 2010). Implementation of proven ser­ vices that prevent recidivism is necessary to decrease the steady rise in incarceration rates among women. Some researchers have argued that increased rates of female incarceration are not related to increases in crimi­ nality among women but the changes in various criminal justice policies. For example, Shelden, Brown, Miller, and Fritzler (2008) argue that a 713% increase in arrests from 1965 to 2005 comes from the war on drugs as well as po­ lice paying greater attention to domestic violence. Over the past several years the significant increase in the pros­ ecution and incarceration of all people for using illegal drugs has significantly increased the number of women incarcerated. Shelden et al. (2008) argue further that the incarceration rate of women for assault and aggravated assault has increased because of the attention law en­ forcement has given to domestic violence; the very laws that were created to protect women are also being used to arrest, prosecute, and imprison women. In law enforcement, the demographics of American po­ lice departments have changed dramatically over the past few decades in regard to race and gender. In the 1960s the vast majority of all police officers were white, working­ class men. Although the majority of police officers today are still white men, more and more minorities and women are becoming police officers (Sklansky, 2006). After the 1972 amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, discrimi­ nation based on race, color, sex, religion, and national ori­ gin in both public and private work places was no longer