Female offenders

happydaz

Hey, I was wondering if anyone could help me and also i thought this would be a good discussion point.

I'm currently researching female offenders in irish criminal law and i'm trying to show that they get a raw deal (does anyone else think they get a raw deal?). anyway so far i've come up with catherine nevin, nora wall and the kerry babies case but i was hoping to find some others...any ideas?

also I was wondering if anyone knew if battered woman syndrome(BWS) had ever been used as a defence for a woman killing her partner and if it was successful? i've found loads of stuff on this from other countries but nothing for ireland yet.

would be really grateful if ye could help-cheers!

Our man in Havana

I would be thinking that they would be using a defence of provocation or self defence. How do you reckon they get a raw deal?

padser

happydaz wrote:

also I was wondering if anyone knew if battered woman syndrome(BWS) had ever been used as a defence for a woman killing her partner and if it was successful?

I am almost certain that BWS has never been sucessfully raised in Ireland. I wasnt aware that it had ever been successfully raised (Ie resulting an acquittal). I thought it was simply a mitaging factor sometimes taken into account at sentencing stage?

I think there would be a serious problem acquitting someone due to a plea of BWS. I mean in reality its little more then prolongued provocation and that has never been a defence to murder.

I also think that if BWS was raised the best case senario for a Def would be a judgement of 'guilty but insane' (or not guilty due to insanity - whatever they changed it to).

Id also be interested to hear why you feel they get a raw deal. I would have thought that if anything they get an easier run, possibly they get vilified a little more in the media but Im not even sure of that.

Mary Bell got released under pretty much the same type of deal as Thompson and Venables, but the public outcry was much greater for those two, despite the fact she was older when she committed her crime, and even a couple of years at that age makes a big difference to moral culpability.

Our man in Havana

Has a verdict of not guilty due to temp insanity ever been returned in Ireland?

Thirdfox

I would have thought that women get a pretty good deal in relation to the law (look at statutory rape and the discrimination against men there ).

Wouldn't the theory of BWS have to apply to men too (to be constitutionally valid)? Or shall we treat everyone differently due to difference in brain structure etc.? e.g. (not real facts) Men are proven to be more likely to steal so should get heavier/lighter punishments compared to women.

Floodgates argument may apply here...

Just as a matter of interest, are you doing the Criminal Law exam in TCD this year? Professor Bacik is a very strong supporter of BWS I hear... I remember having an one line argument with her about it

Victor

I would have thought that women got off OK, what with only a tiny perentage of women being in the prison population. The cases you mention are exceptions. http://www.irishprisons.ie/stats.asp

Bond-007 wrote:

Has a verdict of not guilty due to temp insanity ever been returned in Ireland?

I believe it has. Case a few years ago where a guy killed his (ex-?)girlfriend and her mother. He was however sent to the Central Mental Hospital and subsequently absconded to the UK.

I understand the professionals did not consider him insane, but the jury did.

Sangre

Have you ever seen the female prison in Dublin compared to Mountjoy? I hardly think they're getting a raw deal there.
Women are usually shortchanged in the victim department especially in rape or domestic violence cases.

Although here is a little snippet from a feminist criminology essay I did:

Various studies have invalidated Pollack’s leniency hypothesis that women were treated more favourably by the court i.e. double standards. One study showed that violent women received more sympathetic and individualised justice for serious crimes but this goes against the majority of the research in the area. The courts were pictured with conventional and stereotypical views of gender roles that were reinforced in sentencing. Carlen showed that Scottish sheriffs justified imprisonment more readily for those they thought ‘failed’ as mothers. In fact it seems that women were subject to ‘double deviance’. Since the female crime rate is so low the offender is seen to have transgressed social and genders norms. They are punished for crimes committed and their deviance from appropriate female behaviour. Sniders note that any leniency that had existed disappeared due to the feminist backlash and wanting to seem equal. However the feminist’s point was missed, they didn’t seek harsher female penalties but a reconsideration of males.

happydaz

yeah i'm looking at the whole area of double deiance so am using the work of lombroso, pollak and several feminist criminologists.

perhaps i didn't explain myself well about how women get a raw deal.. if a woman acts feminine and commits a crime which doesn't cross her gender boundary then she gets off lightly. as someone has rightly pointed out there are much less women in prison than men and part of the reason is that women are more likely to be considered 'mad' and in need of medical help than 'bad' and in need of a prison sentence (also part of the reason is the socialisation process which women undergo means that they commit less crime, they're less likely to be criminals)

anyway women who cross gender lines get a much harsher sentence. moira hindely (i can't spell) and nora wall (false case of rape) are such examples. men who rape rarely get a life sentence and i think it's no coincidence that the only women ever convicted with rape got a life sentence. women who act cold, calculating and in any way masculine get treated much harsher. catherine nevin got tornt o shreds by teh media for hiring a hitman....but had she been a man would the public outcry have been as great? i think not.

as for BWS it has its problems too. yes if you were going to use it as an arguement it would have to be valid for men also-i believe http://www.amen.ie do work around that. however going backt ot women who cross gender boundaries, even in canada and the US, there is trouble using BWS as a defence in a lesbian relationship. my source was nearly 10 years old so i don't know what teh current situation is but at that time it wasn't allowed to be used as a defence in lesbian relationships.

in regards to treating people differently according to brain structure-no i wouldn't agree with that. each case must be dealt with individually. if you suffer from BWS and have expereinced teh cycle of threats, beatings, remorse, 'honeymoon period' and then bakc to the beginning and then one day your husbdan says he will kill you and your children in your sleep so you shoot/stab/poisin him. if you argue that it wasn't self defence because you didn't kill him in the heat of the moment then you're suggesting that you have to risk your life in order to aoivd a prison sentence....suffering from BWS means you lack the ability to walk out on the abusive husband or ring for help. so it's a case of survival.

just as a side note there's info on BWS at http://www.jfw.org.uk/BWS.HTM
http://www.jfw.org.uk/ONTRIAL.HTM

any thoughts?

padser

happydaz wrote:

suffering from BWS means you lack the ability to walk out on the abusive husband or ring for help. so it's a case of survival.

You see thats my problem with BWS right there. 'You lack the ability to walk out or ring for help'. So you kill someone.

Studies are showing that many violent male criminals in jail in America (the only place the studies were carried out that I know of) show that the majority of them are lacking in a substance in the brain which is thought to be responsibility for self control. In essence the studies seemed to suggest that these people get angry the same way as you and me. And like you and me they feel like hitting someone etc or are very mad with someone.Again like you and me. The difference is that out brains give us the self restraint not to do it. Theirs do not.

You can apply the exact same argument here as to BWS, they lack the ability to stop themselves. Should they get a defence like BWS??

I accept that these women are abused, repeatadly, (i cant spell either ) but this doesnt excuse KILLING someone. If they are able to go out in the middle of the night and get an axe and go in and kill their sleeping husband, they are perfectly physically capable of taking their kids and running away.

happydaz

BWS can be described as a cycle occurring when a woman is in an abusive relationship. The woman gets attacked, abused, beaten and then her partner apologises, acts remorseful and the relationship continues without abuse for some time. Then the cycle starts again. Not all cases show signs of remorse from the abusive partner. The woman learns helplessness and so wouldn’t consider running to a neighbour or ringing the police for help. Learned helplessness was examined in a study by Seligman (ibid) who experimented on caged dogs by giving them random electric shocks. He found that over time, even when he made it easy for them to escape, then wouldn’t try. A beating or abuse may only have taken place once but the threat of another is what instils fear and the condition is linked with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

you see it's all linked to the beatings and the threat of beatings-it's not about brain chemicals. i'm not saying all female killers should be let go, just that it's something which should be taken into account in a courtroom-that the man that she killed nearly killed her on several occasions. in case anyone was too lazy to read the examples from the links(not being rude to anyone, just i get lazy soemtimes and presume that others do too) on the differences between male and female murder cases in the UK i'll copy and paste them here. this is where i think women get a raw deal....(and don't get me wrong there are other times when i believe men get a raw deal, such as in relation to fathers rights but here isn't the thread to discuss it)

In 1991 Joseph McGrail was tried in Birmingham for the murder of his wife. He pleaded provocation on the basis that his wife was an alcoholic and swore at him. He killed her by repeatedly kicking her in the stomach. At the trial the judge commented ….."this lady would have tried the patience of a saint", he gave him a two year suspended sentence.

In 1995 Brian Steadman was jailed for three years after he hit her 13 times with a hammer, he pleaded diminished responsibility due the his wife's constant nagging.

In 1997 Joseph Swinburne killed his wife by stabbing her eleven times when she told him she was leaving him for another man. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 200 hours community service.

In 1992 Judge Dennison gave Bisla Rajinder Singh, an 18 month sentence suspended for one year for the manslaughter of his wife on the grounds of provocation. The judge told him "you have suffered through no fault of your own….your wife was a domineering lady with a sharp and persistent tongue".

Lucy Kellet was preparing to leave Oliver Kellet after years of abuse. As she as waiting for the removal van to take her to her new home he stabbed her repeatedly with a bowie knife. He pleaded manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was given 3 year probation.

Compare these with the following women

In 1989 after 10 years of severe violence against her Kiranjit Aluwhalia threw petrol over her husbands feet and set it alight whilst he was sleeping, he died some days later. She was arrested and charged with murder, she was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 1992 Zoora Shah snapped after 12 years of physical and sexual violence when her partner turned his attention to her eldest daughter. She poisoned him and was convicted of murder, sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years, she is still in prison.

In 1993 Josephine Smith shot her husband after many years of violence when he threatened to track her down and kill her and their three children if she left him. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum of 12 years.

In 1989 Malcolm Thornton, an alcoholic, threatened to kill his wife Sara and her daughter in their sleep, he taunted her with a knife. The police had been called to the home on numerous occasion throughout their relationship by Sara because of his attacks on her and he was in fact due to appear in court on an assault charge 10 days after he died. Sara feared for her own and for her daughter's life. She stabbed him once and called an ambulance. She pleaded guilty on grounds of diminished responsibility, she was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

For four years Peter Iles persecuted Janet Gardner using violence, threats and harassment. On one occasion he tried to cut her throat, he beat and kicked her and burnt her with cigarettes. During the attack which led to his death he grabbed her round the neck and started beating her head against the kitchen doorway. Janet grabbed a knife and stabbed him seven times. She was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to five years in prison.

happydaz

padser wrote:

You can apply the exact same argument here as to BWS, they lack the ability to stop themselves. Should they get a defence like BWS??

i don;t think it's a case of lacking ability to stop themselves-its lacking the ability to walk out so when you take that into account you can understand how the woman knows that it's either her life and the life of her children which gets taken or she kills the husband. thats how seh comes to see it as self defence and survival. it's all about understanding how oppressed these woman are.

Sangre

I'm not doubting the validity of your claims as I've read up quite a bit on the area but what you've pasted there seems to be phrased in a incredibly biased way. There is also the fact that you can prove nearly anything by picking cases at random, such is the system unfortunately. (Haven't read the website though)

Actually on a computer now editing an feminist essay I've to learn for my cirminology exam

Thirdfox

Verbal abuse can be just as bad as physical abuse in my opinion... I think there was some research done in the area. Amen.ie doesn't seem to "work around" the problem of long term abuse by wives - indeed why do problems need to be worked around? (My lecturer laughed at me when I suggested that husbands suffering long term abuse (would most likely be verbal) should have BW(M?)S defence open to them if women were allowed the defence).

This goes further into tying crime and punishment into science and psychology (which brings people dangerously close to eugenics et al., but maybe that's what we want though?) E.g. (made up information) black people are more likely to commit crime => racial profiling is okay. Babies tested for this "murder" hormone in brain - are they likely to snap under pressure and kill?

In one way this is seems like an argument about whether provocation should be objective or subjective - how individualised should punishments/defences be? What of the general concepts of justice then?

(Deep philosophical questions which I am most definitely not qualified to answer! )

Sangre

Well provocation is subjective here isn't it? Quite an unusual position in the common law world if I remeber correctly.

dermot_sheehan

Sangre wrote:

Well provocation is subjective here isn't it? Quite an unusual position in the common law world if I remeber correctly.

The test for provocation is objective, i.e. what would cause a reasonable person to lose control.

padser

gabhain7 wrote:

The test for provocation is objective, i.e. what would cause a reasonable person to lose control.

The test is officially an objective one however thats not really the case in practice (I think, could be completely wrong).

Since provocation only applied to murder, and reduces it manslaghter it can only be brought up as a defence when the accused 'intended' to kill.
The reasonable man is never going to be 'provoced' into 'intending' to kill someone surely?


As our lecturer put it to us it can hardly ever be a reasonable response to provocation (which can include verbal abuse or even nagging) to kill somone.



I also have to agree with Sangre, you cant just pick random cases, give a couple of lines highlighting the facts that suit the argument that the punishment was either to harsh or too lenient and try and draw conslusions from it.

For example, another way to look at those cases you just mentioned

In 1997 Joseph Swinburne's wife told him she had been cheating on him for the last number of years. In a fit of passion he picked up a knife and stabbed her 11 times. It was concluded he was temporarily insane/or provocated, and he was convicted of manslaughter.

In 1989 Kiranjit Aluwhalia threw petrol over her husbands feet and set it alight whilst he was sleeping. After spending 5 agonising days in hospital her husband died in excruciating pain with burns covering 95% of his body. She was arrested and charged with murder, she was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment



Im just saying the sentences given out for killing someone vary enormously and for many different reasons. Your sample is far far too small and select to be statisically sound.


Also if you lock a dog in room and visit him and feed him every day. And there is a numerical touch pad as a lock on the door with a 4 digit pin. The dog will probably never cop on what the pin you keep entering to open the door is. But Id say most women would probably feel they would after a few days
(Just making the point that women are generally considered to be (rightly or wrongly;) ) of slightly higher intelligence then dogs

gonk

happydaz wrote:

I'm currently researching female offenders in irish criminal law and i'm trying to show that they get a raw deal (does anyone else think they get a raw deal?).

Well, this says all anyone needs to know about the likely bias and quality of your research. You're starting from a conclusion you've already decided on and now you're looking for facts to fit, instead of starting from a hypothesis and doing research to establish whether or not your hypothesis is true.

To answer your question, I'm sure some women get a bad deal in Irish criminal law, but others get a very good deal. For example, Norma Cotter of Midleton in Cork, who in 1995 came home pissed, took exception to her husband objecting to her puking in their bedroom, and after sleeping off the drink went back to the bedroom with her husband's shotgun and killed him as he slept. Norma served three years for manslaughter. Seems like a pretty good deal to me . . .

As for Myra Hindley being an example of a woman who got an unjustly harsh sentence, words fail me.

happydaz

i think the finding showed how creatures can be conditioned. of course women are more intelligent than dogs-that study was only about physical violence (i thought of my poor dog when reading about it :mad: ) but in BWS cases women suffer from abuse thats physical and emotional. i read somewhere that it's very dangerous for women to try and leave abusive partners so they obviously know this.
the downside of using BWS as a defence is that it plays up notions of women as emotional, passive, irrational and childlike beings. these ideas don't just float around society-they are enshrined in many of our laws and in our constitution.

happydaz

gonk wrote:

Well, this says all anyone needs to know about the likely bias and quality of your research. You're starting from a conclusion you've already decided on and now you're looking for facts to fit, instead of starting from a hypothesis and doing research to establish whether or not your hypothesis is true.

To answer your question, I'm sure some women get a bad deal in Irish criminal law, but others get a very good deal. For example, Norma Cotter of Midleton in Cork, who in 1995 came home pissed, took exception to her husband objecting to her puking in their bedroom, and after sleeping off the drink went back to the bedroom with her husband's shotgun and killed him as he slept. Norma served three years for manslaughter. Seems like a pretty good deal to me . . .

As for Myra Hindley being an example of a woman who got an unjustly harsh sentence, words fail me.

what of nora wall? i think my point was that women who cross gender boundaries get a harsher sentence than those who don't, perhaps i didn't articulate that well enough. if you take the case you mentioned above-did she act remorseful, did she seem emotional, perhaps she went into court in a floral dress and with her knitting....from what i've found so far, the women who act 'as they should' (ie don't cross gender boundaries) get far lighter sentences than male criminals , unfairly lighter. in fact soem get no sentence at all-they just recieved counselling etc. but the women who cross that boundary often get demonised. it's the whole notion of double deviance.

gonk

happydaz wrote:

what of nora wall?

What of her? She was wrongfully convicted of raping a ten-year old girl and received a life sentence. Her conviction was - rightly - overturned and she was acquitted & released. However, in my view, if she had in fact been guilty of the offences alleged against her, there would have been nothing unduly harsh in the sentence she received. In my opinion, nothing about the Nora Wall case supports your assertion that women are punished severely for some types of offence solely because of their gender.

happydaz

she is the only person(note person-men included) in the history of ireland to get a life sentence for rape. i think that's a powerful statement on double deviance in itself.

gonk

happydaz wrote:

she is the only person(note person-men included) in the history of ireland to get a life sentence for rape. i think that's a powerful statement on double deviance in itself.

She is not. For example:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0324/rape.html

This is a report on the case of a Laois man given over a dozen life sentences for rape in March of this year. Some of the life sentences were made consecutive to - i.e., they will not start to run until the end of - a 20 year sentence he was already serving for sexual assaults on his daughter.

There are, I believe, although I can't think of the details off the top of my head, other recent instances of men receiving life sentences for rape. Maybe you can find them for yourself. After all, you claimed in your first post to be researching the area. You don't seem to be doing too well so far . . .

padser

gonk wrote:

You don't seem to be doing too well so far . . .

I think your being a bit harsh, Im not necessarily buying into the notion that men get off easier or vice versa but happydaz is rasing some interesting points

Sangre

padser wrote:

I think your being a bit harsh, Im not necessarily buying into the notion that men get off easier or vice versa but happydaz is rasing some interesting points

Hes totally right about double deviance. Any unladylike crimes are punished far worse than a man would be. The courts have conventional stereotypical roles which they reinforce in sentencing. Women are also treated much worse on the outside as a result. The stigma and loss of reputation is far worse than that a man would receive.
To name just one, Carlen did a study in Scottish courts showing this

gonk

padser wrote:

I think your being a bit harsh

I don't think I'm being in the least bit harsh.

Happydaz started by telling us (s)he was carrying out research to support a conclusion (s)he had already reached. A pretty good definition of "research" is "a systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge". In this case, happydaz has made the generalization without troubling to first carry out the investigation.

When challenged, (s)he made a demonstrably false assertion about the uniqueness of Nora Wall's life sentence for rape. All the research I had to do to disprove it was a ten second search in Google. Anyway, even if it had been true, would it be reasonable to generalize from a unique case of an allegedly harsh sentence on a woman to the conclusion that all women offenders are liable to harsher sentences than men for certain categories of offence?

And again Happydaz, what had Myra Hindley's gender to do with the severity of her sentence? She got the same as her male accomplice, Ian Brady, and rightly so. I'd like to see you look the families of their victims in the eye and tell them Hindley was hard done by because she was a woman.