Crimes of Violence: An Examination of the Identification of Women as "Violent" Offenders in the Canadian Criminal Justice System (From Interrogating Social Justice: Politics, Culture and Identity, P 109-142, 1999, Marilyn Corsianos and Kelly Amanda Train, eds. -- See NCJ-182061)

• NCJ Number: 182064
• Author(s): Colleen Anne Dell
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 34 pages
• Sale Source: Canadian Scholars Press
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

This analysis of the relationship between identity and criminality in Canada explores the application of the violent offender label to women charged with or convicted of a violent crime and criticizes the dominant perspectives of women involved with violent offenses as either victims or unnatural and evil.

Abstract

The analysis uses socialist feminist theory and proposes that the violent female offender identity is a deliberate social construction that stereotypes violent female offenders to assist in maintaining the current form of capitalist patriarchy. Two examples of the perpetuation of the violent female offender identity in Canada are the 1994 conduct of the emergency response team in the Kingston Prison for Women and the initiation of Judge Rutushney’s review of Canadian women who claim to have killed their partners in self-defense. Two additional examples are the Correctional Service of Canada’s use of the Offender Intake Assessment with Federal female inmates and media coverage of the crises in the new Federal female institutions. However, the theoretical literature and empirical research on violent female offenders are inadequate at best. Further research should include reliable quantitative and qualitative research and concentration on the effect of variables such as race, class, and age on the application of the female violent label to women charged with or convicted of a violent crime. Chart, notes, and 118 references