ABSTRACT
The twentieth-century history of women and crime involved women who offended, who were the victims of crime and who have enforced the law, for example as police officers. These three groups were not entirely discrete. Sometimes they have overlapped fortuitously, but more commonly because of how women have been ideologically and structurally positioned. For example, in 1997 nearly half of 234 imprisoned women offenders interviewed reported experience of physical or sexual abuse. 1 In recent decades women police officers have disproportionately complained of sexual harassment and even violence from male colleagues.
