Tracie Andrews released from jail after serving 14 years for killing Lee Harvey

[rainbowtoenails]

I cant do a link to the news reports on this from my phone but I'm sure someone else can do that.

I saw Lee's parents on This Morning today. It is very sad that they have suffered the awful loss of their son and I can see why they feel let down by a justice system where life does not mean life.

But, looking at this case with a feminist gaze I cant help but make comparisons with other intimate partner killings. Mostly committed by men, these other cases Ive heard of rarely end up with a sentence of as long as 14 years. It reminds me of what I read ages ago in Helena Kennedy's 'Eve was Framed' that the justice system is harder on women than men for the same crimes. Im not saying that TA should have been let out sooner but that people of both genders who commit these crimes should be given equally long sentences.

It's OK. I'm not spoiling for a fight or anything . I was working from home today, and being the total procrastinator that I am, thought it would be fun to google for the ungooglable. The site I linked to certainly gives all the stats....but I am sure there more to it than just numbers.

I was quite shocked to see that the no of women given custodial sentences had increased by 30% in 10 years - for men it stayed about the same...

do you think it might be because women could be committing more crime?

sorry-that sounds really stupid doesnt it[my post]-
do you think that women are commiting more serious crimes.?

yep SGM-this is what im thinking aswell[.........or are we increasingsly using prison as a social weapon?]
im thinking though also-when im thinking of women a few years back..[crime]
a lot of it was things like shoplifting for food and things[either to lift the stuff for self or to lift the stuff and sell on]
now...its more drug related stuff.
of course both then and now theres been prostitution though.[and getting done for it]

theres more women[i feel]imprisoned now for crimes such as child murder and peadophillia.when i was younger you hardly heard of women committing peadophillia.im wondering why this is on the increase?

I didn't think from the figures that women are committing more violent crime. Women seem to be generally locked up for fraud, theft and drug offences, not violence.

annogain - it's probably just that it is better reported. When I was child in the 70s we wandered wherever all day. Our parents weren't concerned about abduction or anything. It remains rare. Most children are killed by people in their immediate household.

hmmmm-i dont know Portofino...there does seem to be more voilent girl gangs about.and women being voilent with men[men and women being violent together.]

There was a note in one of the docs I looked at that for women who had an IPP - ie indefinitely locked up for the protection of society, 80% had committed arson. These are small numbers we are talking about, but that screams MH issue to me.

yep-i agree portofino[22.26]
but yes most children are killed in theyre immediate houshold but there seems to be more women that are killing theyre children than in the past.

Lord knows. The stats I linked to don't go in to that detail. Do more women kill their kids than in the past? I doubt it probably. There is so much more intervention and follow up these days.

I bet all sorts went on once - those long trips to visit relatives if you inconveniently found yourself in the family way, smothering of babies who didn't come out perferct looking, giving your kids away to family/strangers if you didn't want them. I have spent years doing my family tree, These things have come up.

yep-i agree with you SGM.
im still wondering though why women are committing crimes such as child murder and paedophillia.this seems to be on the increase.

yep-i agree Portfino[22.43]
but this was years ago-im talking about the last[say]ten/15 years.

sorry-i should be putting a in my posts as it looks like im arguing.im not-im finding it interesting.

It is still, overwhelmingly, men that commit the majority of crime. The women who go to prison are predominantly there for theft and drug offences. They come (statistically speaking) from backgrounds of poverty, abuse and dv. That's not to say that isn't true for the men either...

yep i agree Portfino.
i guess what im trying to get at is-are more women committing crimes such as child murder and paedophilla or are we burying our heads in the sand and pretending it isnt happening?

and WHY are women committing these crimes!

annon - no, it doesn;t appear that that is the case.