Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book traces the development of the concept of gender-responsive justice and critically explores its applications since the 1990s. It explores the development of punishment in practice and in theory and reveals the masculinist nature of the logics and assumptions which underpin the punishment regimes which we largely accept today. The book considers the intervention of females into criminology and criminal justice practice in the latter part of the twentieth century. It discusses the rise of gender-specific justice practices. The book also considers this writing out of women and explores the early attempts of feminists to put right this wrong and to challenge masculinist accounts of the place which punishment has held in societies both contemporary and past. It looks at criticisms of gender-responsive justice which flow from more radical and critical perspectives.