Understanding Female Offending in the context of Criminal Justice System: A Gender Perspective

The study of criminal offending has long been excluding women behaviour from theory and research. Women offenders have been ignored and seen as abnormal as they not only violate the laws but also the gender norms. To add, the criminal justice system developed keeping male offender as the yardstick. Although as per reports, women offenders are less in number compared to males; the number of incarcerated women continues to increase today. While much has changed, much has remained the same; even today female prisoners are viewed as a doubly deviant woman and thereby face multiple marginality. Also, the institutions like Police are masculine in nature and the Prison which are supposed to reform the offenders are found to be inadequate in terms of specific women needs. Also, women in general who tend to face gender violence throughout their lives, often end up becoming subjects of disproportionate violence compounded with issues like groping while body searches, sexual assault, etc, when in prison.

Apart from these, the existing rehabilitative courses for women prisoners tend to remain outdated and monotonous and lacks innovations. In recent years, however, there has been raising awareness about the women's experience with the criminal justice system. The profile and background of women in prison differ significantly from those of men, as well as their experiences. Thus, it is important that the criminal justice system considers the different needs of the women prisoners by employing a gender perspective to look into female offending, its context and pattern thereby evaluating the criminal justice system and its treatment of men and women as criminal offenders. Therefore, the objectives of the paper are firstly, to study the female offending, its patterns and characteristics of the crimes committed. Secondly the paper will delineate the problems of women prisoners inside the prison. The paper would also try to address the continuum of violence that women come across within the criminal justice system. Also, it will suggest necessary measures to rehabilitate women prisoners by developing gender-specific programming for women. Thus, understanding the nuances of the female offending and the problems faced by women prisoners while interacting with the justice system would make the justice system inclusive and thus, serve the purpose of gender sensitivity.