ABSTRACT
Recently, the depiction of women in the criminal-justice process has been contextualised by growing concerns about women’s visibility as defendants. The gendered expectations which are an inextricable part of the modern trial process have been challenged by their enhanced visibility, but how far and in what (positive) ways has this challenge affected such expectations? Since the 1990s, commentary has reflected on the extent to which females have increasingly perpetrated offences which are not those traditionally associated with women (property crimes and regulatory offences). They now commonly include interpersonal violence, for instance, thereby investing their offending with a more ‘masculine’ profile. British Crime Surveys indicate that in 2007-8, 13 per cent of violent crimes were committed by women, with a significant female involvement in a further 11 per cent, entailing a rise of 24 per cent on the 2001-2 levels in the Survey. Police forces also admitted to disquiet about violence committed by all-girl gangs.1 This unease about female offending reveals how profoundly gendered our gaze on the criminal-justice system remains. As this chapter will demonstrate by drawing on historical illustrations, a gendered perspective has long been an inextricable element in the legal process. This has had a profound impact not just on women’s encounters with the courts but also on the male experience of the criminal-justice system.
