Attitudes, Policies and Procedures for Dealing with Female Offenders - Essay Example

This research will answer the question ‘Are the attitudes, policies and procedures for dealing with female offenders difficult to justify when compared with their male counterparts?’ the methodology employed in order to address this question is documentary research. The study, utilizing the documentary research methodology, relied on using secondary data collected from various scholarly kinds of literature written about female offenders, UK Case Laws, crimes, and legislation. In the documentary analysis undertaken, the answer to the primary question is NO.

It is not difficult to justify. This answer to the question is supported by the following suppositions: 1. Justice is impartial. The gender and sex of the offender are immaterial in the resolution of case 2. There is a need to redefine the court system in such a way that it will accommodate female offenders and workers in the justice system 3. There is a need for restructuring the justice system. 4. Reformation in the justice system 5. Training among the workers on the treatment of female offenders.

The notion of women committing crimes have been considered as a deviancy from the cultural image and gendered expectations that society has of women.1 Being such, traditional theories pertinent to female delinquency and female offending have been focused on how women are biologically destined in committing crimes or by explaining it away via citing pathological explanations that confound the criminal act. Recognizing the importance of these views as necessary in understanding the criminal behaviour of women, does not preclude the fact that women ‘do’ commit crimes and that there are factors and explanations behind their criminal acts and not simply because of their gender or sexuality.

2 Although Table 1 shows that compared with men, women commit fewer crimes but it does not show the fact that there is an increase in the number of crimes being committed by women from 1997 to 2007. Furthermore, it perpetuates the traditional conception that women, unlike men, are not prone to criminal behaviour which is contestable.