Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

Gender, crime and discretion in the English criminal justice system, 1780s to 1830s

Palk, D. E. P. (2001) Gender, crime and discretion in the English criminal justice system, 1780s to 1830s. Doctoral thesis. University of Leicester.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Abstract: Historians of English crime and criminal justice agree that females are more leniently treated by the criminal justice system. Fewer females are prosecuted for unlawful activities, and, when they are, they are more readily acquitted, or receive lighter sentences than males. However, reasons for this remain elusive. References to the paternalism of those involved in the system, together with notions about masculinity and femininity in a patriarchally ordered society, have been offered in the absence of other more focussed and systematic evidence. This thesis follows a systematic enquiry about three crimes which attracted the death sentence — shoplifting, pickpocketing, and uttering forged Bank of England notes. The period of the study covers the 1780s to the I830s, and is centred on London and Middlesex. It considers involvement in each crime by gender. The approach seeks to avoid the over-generalisation resulting from synthesis of statistics for a wide variety of offences, and to allow a clearer view of how men and women operated in committing offences. This systematic approach follows the offenders involved in the three crimes through the criminal justice system, so far as it is possible to do so, since the public trial and sentencing at the Old Bailey were not the end of the decision-making story. Previous studies have largely neglected to follow-through to the stage of commutation of sentences and pardons where influences on the decision-makers differed from those on decision-makers at earlier stages of the system. In particular, this thesis focuses on the gendered context of the specific behaviour of male and female offenders in the selected offences, on the effects of a patriarchal system of justice, and on the needs of the State to make political decisions about the disposal of offenders
Additional Information: This University of Northampton thesis was validated by the University of Leicester
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV6001 Criminology > HV6046 Female offenders
H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV7231 Criminal justice administration
Creators: Palk, Deirdre E P
Department: School of Social Sciences > Theses
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Health & Society > Theses (Health & Society)
University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > School of Social Sciences (to 2016) > Theses
Date: 2001
Date Type: Completion
Number of Pages: 298
Language: English
Status: Unpublished
Institution: University of Leicester
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/2806

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