Tag Archives: Female offenders

Bad Girls

According to this article the number of female offenders seems to be on the rise. What’s interesting about this growing trend is that crimes committed by women tend to be more noticed than those committed by men independently from any other categories such as race, age, crime type, motive, etc.

One of the books mentioned in the article is Good Girls Gone Bad , by Susan Nadler in which the author interviews a few women prisoners and finds out that for the most part the interviewees seem to “fit into one of several categories.”  These categories range anywhere from; acting out, snapping, addiction to obsession. But aren’t these the same categories for men? I would think so, however it’s been recorded that female offenders are harshly punished. In some cases even for crimes a lot less violent than those committed by males. Please note that I’m not trying to say they shouldn’t be punished, my opinion is simply that if someone breaks the law the punishment should be THE SAME regardless of the offender’s gender.

Another thing that’s important to understand and which the author of the book doesn’t touch on is, as Katherine Ramsland mentions, some women; in fact many women end up behind bars because they just simply couldn’t take it anymore. Abused wives, moms, girlfriends reach the same breaking point anybody else does after the abuse has gone a little too far. Whether the abuse is physical or not it NEEDS to stop at some point and when nothing else works violence seems to cut it.

Personally it is very bothersome how societies view women criminals. Instead of acting as if the world is ending because a woman is the victimizer, we must learn that purposely hurting another human being, regardless of who did it, it’s still an act of violence that should under no circumstances be tolerated.