Female Delinquents and Restorative Justice

Abstract

As imprisonment rates increase in America, women are being adversely affected. Although women are still a minority in terms of the total number of persons incarcerated, their numbers are rising faster than those of men. This article looks at this disheartening trend and makes the case the restorative justice can be used as gender-specific programming for female delinquents.

Family Structures in Pennsylvania and its Effect on Delinquent Acts: A Data Analysis

“…Research (Lieber & Fox, 2005;O'Neill, 2004) shows that racial characteristics influence judicial outcomes. While some research (Dohrn, 2004;Verrecchia, 2009) has shown that females tend to get a harsher sentence than males in juvenile court, other researchers (Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992;Hawkins, Catalano & Brewer, 1995) have found being a female to be a protective factor when it comes to problem behavior. Finally, research has demonstrated that younger juveniles tend to be diverted from the system or handled informally than older juveniles (Mears, Cochran, Stults, Greenman, Bhati & Greenwald, 2014).…”

The challenges for good practice in police-facilitated restorative justice for female offenders

“…Policy literature in the UK has proposed a restructuring of how female offenders are processed by the criminal justice system (CJS), given female offenders' backgrounds of abuse, general vulnerability, and mainly low-level offending (Corston, 2007). For decades, RJ has been suggested as a possible CJS alternative for women who offend (Gaarder & Presser, 2006;Verrecchia, 2009), however the research literature thus far has identified that relatively few female offenders participate in RJ, leading to a lack of awareness to how female offenders experience, or benefit from, these processes (Sherman et al, 2008;Miles, 2013). A handful of quantitative studies involving young female offenders have suggested increased desistance compared to the CJS (Hayes, 2005;Rodriguez, 2007); however, qualitative studies involving young female offenders suggest that they may find RJ very difficult (Maxwell et al, 2004;Daly, 2008).…”

“…The report indicated that the CJS does not have the capacity to address women's histories of victimisation which often accompany their offending (Corston, 2007). Restorative Justice (RJ) has been described as a possible alternative disposal for female offenders because of its 'holistic' approach, taking into consideration the context of offenders' lives while still being victim-led (Gaarder and Presser, 2006;Verrecchia, 2009). There have, however, been few studies examining female offenders' experiences of RJ (Sherman, Strang & Newbury-Birch, 2008) bar some notable exceptions outside the UK where young male and female offenders' experiences have been compared either qualitatively or quantitatively (Maxwell, Kingi, Roberston & Morris, 2004;Hayes, 2005;Rodriguez, 2007;Daly, 2008).…”

“…In response to such research, feminist writers have advocated for RJ as a CJS disposal for female offenders (Gaarder & Presser, 2006;Verrecchia, 2009). Research on how they experience RJ, however, is scarce due to the low number of female offenders participating in RJ (Sherman et al, 2008;Miles, 2013).…”

Working with female offenders in restorative justice frameworks

“…2 It is known that so-called 'neutral processes', which are based on a male normative standard, often disadvantage women in the criminal justice system (Corston, 2007). In recognition of differences in female and male pathways to crime, experts in the field have called for gender-aware restorative justice practice (Alder, 2000;Elis, 2005;Verrecchia, 2009). Although exactly what a genderaware 3 practice should look like within the restorative justice field remains unclear, a core starting point must include a focus on women's needs and circumstances (Alder, 2000;Worrall and Gelsthorpe, 2009).…”