On radio four NOW! Are women treated more harshly than men in the...

[PosieParker]

criminal justice system.

Listened to it and doesn't appear they are.

has something changed since Helena Kennedy's awful book about this then? It was always the case before, women overwhelmingly more likely to get a custodial sentence for a first offence and so on

It was rather short for such a huge issue. The causes of criminal activity are often different for men and women so I don't really understand why they didn't explore all of the issues.

PosieParker, are the causes for criminal activity often different, or as part of the patriarchy has female criminal activity been pushed into different boxes ie women could only commit crime as a reaction, they have mental illness,effects of hormones, etc?

In F/M killing duos we tend to presume the females role is the weaker one, she's somehow forced into it which isn't necessarily true.

Was it woman's hour? Just looking for it

YY woman's hour.

MsAnn... I am not sure really. Worth looking at properly though.

PosieParker, doing some research lately and found www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/support-files/female-psychopathic-killers.pdf article. Raises some points I hadn't even considered in how women are treated differently when involved in crime.

Doesn't look like it:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7995844/Judges-told-be-more-lenient-to-women-criminals.html

Call me anti-feminist but I think criminals should be treated the same regardless of gender. If you can't do the time don't do the crime.

But as Alameda says, they aren't treated equally. And treating people equally does not meaning treating the same.

Alameda did you not like Helena Kennedy's book?

I didn't at the time - although if I'd known twenty years ago what I know now I suppose I would have just been happy that someone had written it at all! What have we had since?

Baffled as to why it would be anti-feminist to extend the same leniency to women that men can expect at the hands of British justice! Just because there are so few female criminals compared to male - I don't even know where this is going.

I enjoyed the book. She updated after doing a lot of work on changing the rape laws to make the onus of establishing consent on the perpetrator rather than the victim. I thought the way she explained how people's prejudices were brought into the courtroom, how courts were set up for the convenience of men and with men in mind and how different punishments should apply in certain cases was excellent. I also loved the scene she portrayed the Greenham Common trials

That update didn't seem to suggest anything had changed. A bit depressing really.

that almost sounds like a different book but I was in a dodgy place at the time