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Feminism: chat

Disparity in sentences for men and women

40 replies

ZenNudist · 03/01/2024 17:48

2 cases that I saw today about people killing their partners made me wonder whether men and women killers get different treatment in prison sentences. Does anyone know if this happens?

I wanted to post about Alice Wood who killed her boyfriend running over him in what is said to be a jealous rage. There is allegations on her part that he was violent to her. Shes not been sentenced yet but judge has said she may never be released. I couldn't understand why Alice Wood was being told she may never be released. Yet I was sure men got away with killing their partners with relatively short prison sentences.

Like this man sentenced to 12 years for stabbing his partner and refusing to call an ambulance.

There are sentencing guidelines to ensure equality across similar crimes right? So presumably when Alice Wood is sentenced we can expect that to be for 12 years.

Apologies for Grauniad link.

Campaigners condemn 12-year sentence for man who killed partner in Birmingham

Sentence for manslaughter of Kinga Roskinska shows how justice system fails women killed by men, say campaigners

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/03/campaigners-rail-against-12-year-sentence-for-man-who-killed-girlfriend-kinga-roskinska-pawel-ondycz

OP posts:
puncheur · 05/01/2024 08:06

@SunnySkeg i honestly don’t know as I couldn’t find a breakdown of homicide sentences by sex. I do know that overall women receive lesser sentences for the same offence for the reasons posted by PPs and linked to in the study posted by @Summonedbybees Your point about women being more likely to use a knife than men and therefore this counting as an aggravating factor is an interesting one but again, it would be good to see the stats behind that but I’ve struggled to find any.

Breakdowns by sex of perpetrator, and even breaking down into the different categories of homicides seem hard to come by, and it’s compounded by the fact that homicide stats are compiled by year of sentencing rather than the year of the act - so you get weird skews like all of Harold Shipman’s victims being in a single year causing a huge spike. Looking into it briefly I’m surprised that the stats are so poor. I’m also unclear as to whether the stars include unsolved homicides.

Mummysatthebodyshop · 05/01/2024 08:20

I vaguely remember being told it's because of the style. Women are more likely to plan and it be premeditated, men claim to act in the moment. Hence the disproportion in sentencing

deydododatdodontdeydo · 05/01/2024 09:06

I'd be interested to see stats rather than single cases. There are tons of examples of single cases I can think of of women receiving light sentencing, including women who have killed their husbands and avoided jail due to abuse, and the teacher who slept with underage schoolboys and avoid jail.

baileybrosbuildingandloan · 05/01/2024 13:00

It had been statistically proven historically that women receive harsher sentences. Disgraceful.

deydododatdodontdeydo · 05/01/2024 13:16

baileybrosbuildingandloan · 05/01/2024 13:00

It had been statistically proven historically that women receive harsher sentences. Disgraceful.

That's the opposite of what some posters have shown.

puncheur · 05/01/2024 14:53

@baileybrosbuildingandloan can you link to this statistical proof please?

For example this paper: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/154388/14/Gender%20Discrimination_23%20August.pdf suggests the exact opposite: that for the same offence women are less likely to get a custodial sentence and if they do so it is shorter.

This is to be expected: males typically have more aggravating circumstances in their crimes, such as use of higher levels of violence, and women typically have more mitigating ones, such as coercion.

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/154388/14/Gender%20Discrimination_23%20August.pdf

TheZoehan · 06/01/2024 04:45

I thought it was pretty much accepted that men get harsher sentences. It's been discussed on here quite a lot before.

United States

A 2001 University of Georgia study found substantial disparity in the criminal sentencing that men and women received "after controlling for extensive criminological, demographic, and socioeconomic variables". The study found that in US federal courts, "blacks and males are... less likely to get no prison term when that option is available; less likely to receive downward departures [from the guidelines]; and more likely to receive upward adjustments and, conditioned on having a downward departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females".[9]

In 2005 Max Schanzenbach found that "increasing the proportion of female judges in a district decreases the sex disparity" in sentencing which he interprets as "evidence of a paternalistic bias among male judges that favors female offenders".[10]

In 2006 Ann Martin Stacey and Cassia Spohn found that women receive more lenient sentences than men after controlling for presumptive sentence, family responsibilities, offender characteristics, and other legally relevant variables, based on examination of three US district courts.[11]

In 2012 Sonja B. Starr from University of Michigan Law School found that, controlling for the crime, "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do," and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted", also based on data from US federal court cases.[12][13]

United Kingdom

A paper examining gender sentencing disparities in a large samples of assault, burglary and drugs offences found that male offenders are subjected to significantly harsher sentences, even when controlling for mitigating factors and case characteristics. Men were 2.84 times more likely than women to receive custodial sentence for the offence of assault, 1.89 more likely for the offence of burglary, and 2.72 more likely for offence related to drugs. For offences of assault, the gender factor was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor with the exception of the ‘with intent to commit serious harm’ factor.[14]

France

A 2020 study shows that women receive 33% (15 days) shorter prison sentences than men, even when controlling for all observable characteristics – including a very precise description of the crime. When pairs of mixed-gender offender are convicted together the gender gap is even higher - men receive 38.7 additional prison days and 10.7 fewer suspended prison days.

From a procedural point of view, when controlling for the type of crime, men are on average judged after shorter investigations, and are more likely to be sentenced after an accelerated procedure. When taken to court, men are 20% less likely to be discharged (6% vs. 4%). In 2017, 19.9% of convicted men were sentenced to prison, compared to 8.5% of convicted women.

Female judges have less bias than male judges. With decreasing number of female judges in the court the gender gaps in prison and probation sentences widens - prison and probation sentences are lighter for women, while suspended prison sentences are longer. The gender of the prosecutor seem to play no role.[15]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_disparity

OneMorePlant · 06/01/2024 07:23

On less severe crimes women get sentences less severe than men but on serious crime like murder they tend to get judged more harshly.

Some of the previous studies posted are pointless though because they do not look at specific crimes and just sentencing in general. Men commit 85-95% of all violent crime and 99% of sexual assault and rapes. Women on the other hand seem to be more experts in financial fraud. When you bare this in mind just looking at sentencing overall will not give you an accurate picture.

Women get judged less harshly for most crimes for some very good reasons.

  1. Recidivism is low with women. When they get caught once, most will get their shit together and stop doing crime. It's the opposite with men so they need a bigger scare.
  2. Often these women are single mothers and the father of the children is no longer in the picture or in jail. By sentencing these women you also sentence children to time in the social system which is mostly bad for the children. For society this is a net loss.
  3. Women don't do so well in prison. We're not sure why but self harm and suicides are high in female prison populations. The mental and emotional strain is huge.
missmollygreen · 06/01/2024 15:47

pickledandpuzzled · 03/01/2024 17:57

Women do seem to be sentenced more harshly- but I’m no expert and can’t post to evidence.

Are you joking?

From wikipedia

"A paper examining gender sentencing disparities in a large samples of assault, burglary and drugs offences found that male offenders are subjected to significantly harsher sentences, even when controlling for mitigating factors and case characteristics. Men were 2.84 times more likely than women to receive custodial sentence for the offence of assault, 1.89 more likely for the offence of burglary, and 2.72 more likely for offence related to drugs. For offences of assault, the gender factor was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor with the exception of the ‘with intent to commit serious harm’ factor"

pickledandpuzzled · 06/01/2024 16:29

@missmollygreen but equally women end up in prison for tv license non payment, and seem to end up in far longer for killing their partner. Previous research linked suggests it’s not straight forward.

enchantedsquirrelwood · 06/01/2024 16:50

Summonedbybees · 03/01/2024 18:30

I have taught in prisons. It is well documented that men are treated far more harshly in terms of sentencing than women. If women are mothers, judges do their best to avoid giving a custodial sentence

except apparently when it is pregnant postmistresses being found guilty of fraud/false accounting

NumberTheory · 06/01/2024 18:11

For offences of assault, the gender factor was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor with the exception of the ‘with intent to commit serious harm’ factor"

The thing is, with crime, intent is the key factor. Almost all harms are civil if there isn’t criminal intent. So if men, on the whole, have significantly more criminal intent, then harsher sentences simply fit the crime.

While there is an “intent to commit serious harm” factor in that study, criminal intent will run the gamut and will be assessed throughout a trial, so it may well be that intent even where it isn’t “to commit serious harm” is generally more severe in male criminals and that is what pushes up sentencing. Though I also wonder about how unbiased courts are at judging intent, since prejudices are likely to colour those sorts of perceptions.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 06/01/2024 18:19

From what I’ve read women are less likely to get custodial sentences for assault than men (apart from the fact that they are less likely to commit violent crimes than men) because they more often have caring responsibilities.

TheZoehan · 06/01/2024 21:33

Some of the previous studies posted are pointless though because they do not look at specific crimes and just sentencing in general.

Most of the ones I posted accounted for 'case characteristics', 'criminal/demographic variables', and 'legally relevant variables'.

DadJoke · 10/01/2024 15:35

It might be difference for homocide, but in general women are likely to receive lower sentences for the same crime.

associations-between-sex-and-sentencing-to-prison.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f812ced915d74e622adf5/associations-between-sex-and-sentencing-to-prison.pdf

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