Defeminizing and Dehumanizing Female Murderers

The animal in you: Animalistic descriptions of a violent crime increase punishment of perpetrator

“…One type of description involves painting the crime and criminal as animal-like. Previous work has suggested that animalistic descriptions dehumanize the perpetrator and lead to more severe punishment (Farr, 2000;Goff, et al, 2008). In a series of experiments, we established that animalistic descriptions can be developed holding constant how graphic the description is, and crime seriousness and severity.…”

“…First, it is a serious, violent crime and conviction can lead to a custodial sentence. Second, unlike other crimes (e.g., fraud, theft), crime involving physical aggression is particularly prone to animalistic language and metaphors (Farr, 2000;Goff, et al, 2008). Given that the variable of interest in this research involved animalistic depictions, it was possible that our manipulation would influence the perceived severity of the offense, which would then alter peoples' sentencing recommendations.…”

“…Previous scholarly work has identified a number of extraneous factors that distort judicial decisions. For instance, sentencing can be biased by perpetrator race (Mitchell, Haw, Pfeifer, & Meissner, 2005;Sweeney & Haney, 1992), gender (Daly & Tonry, 1997;Doerner 5 & Demuth, 2010), socio-economic status (Mustard, 2001), age (Steffensmeier, Ulmer, & Kramer, 2006), and sexual orientation (Farr, 2000). These are character-based sources of bias, as they originate in perceived stable characteristics of the perpetrator.…”

“…In particular, although the idea that criminals are literally apish is no longer defensible (Gould, 1996), the metaphors surrounding a crime may serve to frame the perpetrator as less than fully human. Farr (2000) examined the cases of five women sentenced to death for capital murder. Examining both courtroom descriptions and media reports, she argued that the women were first de-feminized and then dehumanized.…”

“…Goff et al, (2008) To date, there has been no empirical examination of the reasons why animalistic depictions of crimes result in harsher sentences for the perpetrator. It has been suggested that dehumanization makes the perpetrator 'monstrous' (Farr, 2000), with an animalistic appetite for crime (see also Haslam, 2006;Jahoda, 1999). Thus, the animalistic perpetrator is 7 incorrigibly criminal; they will reoffend if given the chance.…”