The Complexities of Gendered, Sexualized and Racialised Violence and the response of criminal law and criminal justice - Essay Example

? The Complexities of Gendered, Sexualized and Racialized Violence and the response of criminal law and criminal justice Introduction The paper deals with the issue of and connection between masculinity and crime. The relationship between the occurrences of crimes, the role of gender in the crimes, and criminal justice. The paper looks into the correlation between crime and gender. The paper further looks into the aspect of rape and assumptions on the subject about gender and sexuality1. The generally accepted view is that that criminality and crime are the area of the male; the belief is that men are further possibly than women to be both the victims and perpetrators of a broad variety of criminal’s actions2. Similarly, the general establishment is that women contribute to a minor share of all crimes that are less professional in character and, less grave ensuing in their lesser representation in the criminal justice system. The position, therefore, is that gender can be of a larger statistical importance in the differentiation involving criminals and non-criminals as compared to any other trait. Gender and sexuality in criminality and criminal law justice The aspect of gender is an extremely serious issue in children upbringing, with distinction found in the way boys and girls socialize and stereotypical idea concerning gender suitable behaviors for females and males. This is position is revealed in socialization and is to blame for the criminal activities of females and males, relatively than biologically associated sex dissimilarity. While female socialization considered highlighting compliance, the deviant activities of males put up with and even overlooked and exempted. Objectives and behaviors expectant for males considered to have a lot in agreement with criminal actions, with individual distinctiveness encouraged in the course of socialization into the masculine gender position, like aggression, considered exciting and tough, considerations necessary for participation in crime3. Crime is considered as representatively masculine and maleness as providing the reason for crime. The position is that feminine violent behavior frequently judged further severely than masculine aggression since it reveals a superior deviation from the feminine social norms. Violent women, particularly, have to be consequently mentally not well, or imitating men since, it deviates from the feminine norms. The argument puts forward the belief that feminine offenders socialized wrongly into the masculine gender roles4. A number of explanations for this position have been obtained from the principal that feminine criminal activity has increased in tandem with the better liberation of women and an obvious masculinization of female behavior in general. Amplified offending considered foreseeable as hurdles that confined male privileges fell apart and socially defined sexually categorized roles became progressively more alike. Women’s amplified participation in criminal activities considered then as a purpose of them more often taking on conventionally male personality. Socialization, Biological and masculine clarifications of feminine offending cling to their center that criminal activities is a male action and that by meaning consequently, feminine offenders ought to be more masculine. Even though, the position may appear more naive, the concept has confirmed pleasantly clear-cut particularly for the media, the notion has shown to be a compelling justification for even current evident increases in feminine criminal involvement. It is imperative to note that the inspiration for offending is possibly diverse for offenders doing different types of offences. An example is that property offenders further probably motivated by financial achievement, brutal offenders likely driven by expressive desires. In consideration to masculinity, an individual might hypothesize that aggression and violence in essence involve a superior level of masculinity, undoubtedly portraying a greater deviation from all right feminine behavior. Feminine offenders, particularly violent feminine offenders, recognize themselves as extra masculine as compared to non-offenders; the question in this case is what encompasses femininity and masculinity, with characters looked further in terms of their positive and negative implications5. Offenders are more genderless, but depict much on the negativity of femininity and masculinity while non-offending females depict much on positivity. An improved approval of how males view themselves also clearly furthers the understanding in the whole concept of roles played by gender in criminality. The individual definition in terms of roles played by masculine and feminine traits in line with criminal activities adds to the understanding of gender issues in the realm of crime6. Gender plays a pivotal role in the way correctional processes carried out in the criminal justice system. For instance, the unique idea concerning bail was to offer public safety. Nonetheless, women whose committed crimes are less serious still have to place bail to stay away from jail. The duty of creating bail is dissimilar for both women and men. The majority of female offenders are undereducated, unskilled, and poor, with irregular job histories. Almost two-thirds of women in jails are at the time of arrest not employed, on the other hand, less than one-third of all male counterparts not employed at the time of arrest. The female gender becomes underprivileged owing to their general inferior socioeconomic status. Distinct from men, a few women, have associates who may place bail for them. The bulk of subjects in female pretrial prison detainees were offenders who were not violent who end up in jail since they cannot forfeit bail for delinquency. The setting of bail equally for women and men alike is thus, in fact, make it more difficult for women to pay bail in comparison to men. Concerning litigation concerning parity cases has progressively more uncovered the inferior value of services accorded to women offenders. Nevertheless, fairness and parity do not simply imply giving women the copies of programs for men. Traditionally, correctional indoctrination for women offenders used the basis on profiles of masculine pathways to crime or criminality. Policies, programs, and services that have a focus on the irresistible figures of men in the criminal justice system frequently unsuccessful in the identification of options aimed at gender-responsive results in terms of the needs of women. It becomes significant to know the difference between gender differences and sex differences. While differences on sex are determined biologically, differences in gender constructed socially that is allocated by society, and are in relation to anticipated social roles7. They are neither unalterable nor inborn. Gender in relation to women is about the realism of the lives of and the circumstances in which they live. Scores of more female offenders are prone to imprisonment currently than at any preceding moment in the past. The argument concerns whether parity under the law is essentially excellent for women. Other arguments are that the simple means of eliminating the prejudiced treatment and repression that women have gone trough in the earlier period is to press for sustained equality under the law. The idea here is to champion for like privileges amendments and to resist any laws or regulations that treat men and women in a dissimilar way. The belief is that although equal treatment can harm women in the short term, this is the essential way to pledge in the long term that women will always treated as equivalent to their partners in social and economic terms. For women to assert dissimilarity, when dissimilarity refers to dominance, the same way it does with gender, implies to assert the characters and characteristics of hopelessness. Even the individuals who do not see the suffering of women as one of oppression conclude that Women are victims of laws created from affection and concern and designed to protect them. The opposite argument to this position provides that since women are not the equal to men, the employment of a male standard to gauge parity implies that women will certainly lose. Acknowledgment of the individual or diverse needs of women is, therefore, called for. The same would imply that men and women would be given differentiated handling, so long as this treatment do not place women in a further harmful position than the lack of such a standard. Another situation points out that equally the specific requirements and identical treatment approaches recognize the dominion of male definition8. For instance, parity for women defined to mean privileges equivalent to those of males, and the definition of differential needs implies needs not similar from those of males. According to this situation, women seen as the other under the law and the bottom-line based on males. Dissimilarity in this case is put up as a duality man is dissimilar from the woman, and this dissimilarity is considered as a shortage because she is not male. The model of parity is the foundation for reforms in sentencing currently. The reforms that aim at gender-neutrality in sentencing aspire to decrease sentencing difference by punishing similar crimes in an equal way without the considerations of the role in the gender of the offenders. By the emphasis equality and then exploiting the male standards, there is an assurance that extra women lose their liberty. Because of the rights of prisoners to litigation founded on the equality, model female offenders are being wound up in an organization that seems to be keen to treat women evenly, which essentially means as if they are men. Since this course does not alter the function of sexual category in corrections or prison life, women prisoners get the worst of the worlds. An example is that boot camps have turned out to be popular as an alternative to prison for both adult and juvenile offenders. The operations of boot camps for women based on the model on boot camps for men, and have an inclusion of the employment of humiliation for disrespect of staff, uniforms, and other military approaches. As stated, the present replica of justice termed as the equalization approach lays emphasis on equality and afterwards uses a male standard to approach the issue. This implies increased imprisonment of women replaces the alternatives to prison. Gender insensitive compulsory sentencing laws, predominantly for drug related law transgressions, add up to the increasing population of women in prisons. This is, in fact, equality with retribution. In relation to the male replica of justice, the idea may be that of fair treatment. Nevertheless, equal treatment might necessarily be fair treatment, because the social actuality is that women may have been mistreated, may require different economic needs, and may in other situations be in different positions to the male counterparts. Sexual violence and the offence of rape It is worth noting that in circumstances of rape the trials focus more upon the rape victim, as opposed to the accused, and, at most awful, recreate the aggression that led to the presence of the victim in the court. Several serious studies have shown the habits in which characteristics of the victim's daily life may be marshaled by the defense in a trial on rape to fulfill the requirement of attaching uncertainty upon the prosecution case. The main idea is that it is the ingredients of trial evidence, which must be, criticized, as a result, attacking the requirement for questioning such as concerning the behavior or sexual history that could seem morally doubtful, such as procuring an abortion or using illegal drugs9. The outcome of decades of feminist disapproval of trial procedures must certainly be unacceptable of the importance of topics that show to juries harmful suggestions concerning the nature of the victim. The aim is to spot out that ruling such themes as precluded or restricting defense counsel admission to such themes will not affect, in any considerable way, the conduct and understanding of rape trials. This is the position because trained within the legal dialogue is by far more frightening certainty that a woman is both indifferent and sexual, performing further as an a indication to others than as an independent agent. Such conviction is entrenched inside the symbolic practice of legal discussions. Clothing of the victim at times serves as a way to relate clearly to evidence of basics constituting the offence of rape, for instance the incidence of sexual contact. The probable purpose of outfits is of course extremely undefined. In the case, of R v K, the bra belonging to the victim taken as evidence as semen found inside the bra. This implied that the defense story had to give details as to why the semen would be there. Their answer was to assert that the victim in the case had freely masturbated the defendant using her breasts. In R v NT, the law enforcers investigating the complaint by the victim discovered a pair of tattered stockings at the crime scene10. The defense made it clear that that consensual sex had concerned the victim pulling off the victims stockings If any probative position can be recommended by the prosecution relating to the clothing of the victim, the defense, as noted in some of the cases, may be more likely to assert the presence of consent in sex. The more widespread as compared to this probative role, nevertheless, is the employing of questioning by the defense concerning clothing to place doubt on victims character11. Evidence concerning clothing concurrently impugns the character of the victim and implies consent. The cases I have examined tend not to engage in the stereotypical use other evidence as to dress in order to impugn the character of the victim and implies consent. The heavy-handed questioning acknowledged and criticized by feminists in a number of years seemed incredibly infrequent in some cases. The nearest estimate to that position occurred in R v 0, in this case, the victim was questioned by the defense regarding leggings that were tight stretch material and figure clinging material. The case examined some inquiring as to the attire of the victim at the time before the rape12. This is due partially to the requirement to ascertain certain essential issues linked with the rape, the beastly accurate facts of compulsory clothing removal as a constituent of indecent assault or as an antecedent to the rape. It is also partially to the well-recognized animation of the defense counsel, in seeking to censure nature and establish consent. Conversely, the same also relates to an eminent suspicion that the accused men are responsible for unskilled decoding of messages to a certain extent than rape. Bodily appearance and clothing are termed as an excellent basis of information concerning the self. Trials on rape keep confidence in the view that clothing planned as a communication concerning the woman wearing the clothes. The receiver of the message relayed seen as every man who occurs to see the dressing. A woman who wears clothes in a particularly visible manner and attends to specific types of functions is taking a risk. There's a large danger with alcohol, considering a woman dressed like that, that people would misconstrue what that implies. It does not imply that a woman dressed in that manner is inviting for an attack. The submission of evidence regarding clothing as relaying a semiotic message regarding the woman's ethical nature, but accepts the notion that clothing project as significant to a viewer13. This procedure of projecting and interpretations is essential. The woman is positioned as the dispatcher of the message, and the accused is positioned as the receiver who interprets the communication. The difficulty can be constructed as a malfunction on the senders, the woman wearing the clothing unsuitable to the event fraction of the reason or as a malfunction on the of the recipients part who is the man interpreting a mini skirt as denoting enthusiasm to have sex. Just similar to the questioning regarding dress and clothing has become a criterion for disapproval of rape trials it is renowned that the rape victim who took drugs or alcohol preceding the rape will be questioned as to the effects caused by the substances taken on the victims consent to have sex. Inflated or unsupported allegations of drinking or use of drugs sometimes made as a defense. A complainant drinking prior to the period of the incident is often a main constituent of defense’s case. Even though, less stereotypically employed than the manner of dressing to belittle the woman, proof about the alcoholic use is considered to work in comparable ways in the impeachment of her character and the implication of consent. The juries are a lot more expected to find not guilty the accused in a case of a rape trial in a case evidence is led presenting that the victim took drugs or consumed alcohol before the rape. Defense counsel will certainly scramble to lead evidence about drugs and alcohol. Evidence concerning alcohol can be procured at trial as if it had a direct function in relation to the consent, in the same manner that evidence concerning dress can be employed at that precise level. The main purpose here, though, is to question its made-up function. The use of alcohol is conservatively considered to imply both doubtful ethical personality and consent to engage in sexual activities. The position is to spotlight the cultural and physical attributes associated to alcohol. The view of alcohol as a societal refreshment and constraint of inhibitions14. Drugs and alcohol, conversely, attain these things by their transitory from the outside into the inside of the body: the drinking of alcohol or consumption of drugs. It is commencing from the mouth that abuse can issue, hate speech is uttered from the mouth, accusations of rape can be made from the mouth. The fascinating aspect here is that the mouth through speaking obtains its foundation as an edge between the inside self and the outer body. Consumption of alcohol and drugs operates in reverse to the principles of the mouth that is the opening of the mouth and a thing inserted into the mouth the tongue then moves the substance into the body. In this situation the outer, other integrated into the interior self15. Clothing, on the other hand, serves to elaborate the inner to the outside, with interpretation of clothing as see-through, mere limits connecting the individual on the outside of the woman and what is covered inside the clothes. Examination in cases of rape regarding the use of alcohol deceives the charm for the manner that a thing outside can be taken in. Evidence concerning drugs and alcohol, therefore, brings notice as a border of two separate conditions, the exterior and interior, to the opening of the mouth. The fascination exercised by clothing and consumption issues in litigation discourse has attempted to show how context is flexible and how the woman figured as an aphasic fantasy. But questioning at trial fulfils other functions. One of these is the determination of a narrative of responsibility. Serious attention to this issue has tended to focus on the accumulated substantive content of the report generated. That is, the case considered to involve a battle between two stories - that of the prosecution and that of the defense, or alternatively the legal and the non-legal versions, with the jury invited to choose which version they find most plausible. It is as if the construction of narrative works through a version of the legal process16. The evaluation situation thought to oversee the practice of storytelling, so that two opposing stories presented to an audience who will judge between them to keep the third report which is the decision as shaped by legal narrative. These two competing stories are, therefore, never free-floating random narratives but shaped by the meta-discourse of legal process. The context of the case allowed to unify the different tactics and exculpate the adversaries as performing institutionally dictated functions. Context should not be allowed to act as a shield protecting lawyers from liability for the care they perform and preserve in court. Similarly, content tends to be highlighted as a problem in the generation of these adversarial narratives17. However if context and ideas were all that dictated the creation of narrative, then we could be sure that once established procedures agreed upon, once specific topics accepted as legitimate and other topics outlawed, then rape trials could begin in ways that inflicted no more suffering upon the victim. However, the grounds that such suffering produced as much through the process of law's story telling itself, through the incremental implication of the victim into the defense narrative, as through the substantive consideration of defense questioning. It is not enough for the victim to be vilified according to received ideas about clothes or drink, she must also be made to rub up against the delusion that informs the defense account, made to function as a role in its narrative. The inference strategies mentioned above apply from within the recipient's own account. If the victim argues that she went to a nightclub with a friend for fun, or drank a certain amount of beers, or wore a bikini because she was at a beach party, the strategy of inference works to hide that action with moral opprobrium. The questions, however, do not take issue with those facets of the subject's account rather, they try to alter the evaluative importance placed on those narrative components18. The victim will be asked questions indirect examination by the Crown, questions which allow her to develop her account within the legal frame. Insinuative questioning by the defense will raise questions to which her own answers may initiate the damaging information. Conclusion The perception of women imprisoned for unlawful offences to the public related to the masculinity or more of the characteristics of masculinity as compared to the non-offenders. The situation is so especially for those incarcerated for violent crimes. Nonetheless, this connection does not imply causation. Unconventional explanations are abundant and involve the likelihood that elevated standards of self-perceived masculinity amongst feminine offenders mainly regarding violent feminine offenders are a role of criminal uniqueness worsened, or partly ensuing from the incident of imprisonment19. The consideration of oneself as rude or adventurous might result in participation in criminal activities and consequently imprisonment rather than the foundation of it. The idea of attractiveness can as well clarify a larger intellect of masculinity among the offenders. Ideas of societal interest bias lead us to suppose that more respondents want to describe themselves in positive rather than negative terms. Interpretation of the in terms of desirability might lead to women wishing to report the feminine trait of attractiveness, but not complaining. Likewise for masculine characteristics, women may wish to see themselves as confident, but not boastful. Somewhat intertwined is the notion of trait desirability and subculture. Women within the offending population might view traits such as adventurousness and daring more desirably than full time mums; as a result of their cultural milieu and because these arguably represent the characteristics necessary to survive and succeed in their lifestyle20. Equally, violent offenders may perceive themselves aggressive because this characteristic is more desirable within their particular subculture. Both offenders and professional women may perceive themselves as daring, due perhaps to their break from the more traditional female norm of full time parenting. Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University Press, 1998. Chesnutt, Charles. The Marrow of Tradition: Easyread Edition. ReadHowYouWant.com, 2008. Coetzee, J.M. Age of iron. Penguin Books, 1998. Dangarembga, Tsitsi, The book of not: a novel, Ayebia Clarke, 2006. Dei, G. J. 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