NCJ Number
70360
Editor(s)
C T Griffiths,
M Nance
Date Published
1980
Length
331 pages
Annotation
Focusing on the female offender, these 21 papers presented at an international symposium held in Vancouver, Canada, in January 1979, cover topics ranging from the influence of female sex roles to female terrorists.
Abstract
A paper on misogyny and the 'new' female criminal demonstrates that the prevailing attitude toward women in the criminal justice system is basically enforcement of the female sex-role expectations rather than the law. Another paper, on the role of women in terrorism, states that no convincing evidence exists to show that female and male terrorists differ in their motivations, and it predicts that future terrorists will likely include females in significant numbers. Other papers discuss women's criminality in Poland, including its volume, its dynamics over the years, and its structure as compared to male criminality; family violence in Canada, particularly concerning women as offenders and victims, child abuse, child abduction by a parent, and interspousal violence; and key research findings on domestic violence on both males and females, with recommendations based on these findings. Other issues covered encompass characteristics of the female juvenile offender, causes of juvenile prostitution, and contingency management in a juvenile treatment setting, as well as attempts to deal with female homosexuality in prisons. One paper focuses on the Hillcrest School in Oregon, a State institution for children of both sexes who are court-committed for a misdemeanor or a felony crime, while another considers treatment of convicted female offenders in the criminal justice system, concluding that no systematic policy development and no systematic allocation of resources exists for dealing with female offenders. Several papers discuss managing the female offender and include descriptions of methods used in California and Mexico. Other topics highlighted are sex-role concepts among Federal female offenders, drug abuse and criminality among women in detention, issues in the application of parole guidelines to females, and recent development in probation and parole in British Columbia, Canada. The final paper considers problems of policy development in criminal justice. Footnotes, charts, and references are provided for individual papers. A list of contributors is included. For separate papers, see NJC 70361-77.