The Question of Evil and Feminist Legal Scholarship

Abstract

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‘A Crime of Almost Unspeakable Cruelty and Wickedness’: Gender, Agency and Murder in Scotland – The Case of Jeannie Donald

“…The most notorious case of a woman convicted in connection with child murder in England is undoubtedly that of Myra Hindley, who, during her 36 years of imprisonment, maintained the status of a national hate figure. Even after her death in 2002 – when ‘references to her as an icon of modern evil were ubiquitous’ (Murphy and Whitty, 2006: 4) – she remained despised as a manipulative, self-serving ‘schemer, prepared to trick anyone to be free’ (Stanford in Murphy and Whitty, 2006: 6). However, she acted with another person, Ian Brady, who was considered to be the main perpetrator by the sentencing judge.…”

“…In comparison, commentators and scholars interested in creating a more complex subject position for Myra Hindley have considered her level of agency in relation to her infatuation with, and fear of, Brady. In this regard, he was a convicted criminal by the time he met Myra and 5 years her senior, whereas Myra’s life, until that point, had been ‘unremarkable’ (Birch, 1993; Ballinger, 1996; French, 1996: 33; Morrissey, 2003; Murphy and Whitty, 2006). As such, her agency has been analysed, not only in relation to her role as a child killer, but also in relation to subject positions such as ‘naive dupe’ and victim (Morrissey, 2003: 135).…”

“… 1. See Murphy and Whitty (2006) for references to only three articles they located on the topic of Myra Hindley during the period 1966–2005. …”

Antisocial Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) in Britain: Contextualizing Risk and Reflexive Modernization

“…Thus, within the 'risk society thesis' there are 'several distinct literatures, involving different projects, different forms of inquiry, and different conceptions of their subject matter, all linked tenuously together by a tantalizing four letter word' (Garland, 2001: 49). Murphy and Whitty (2006) have advanced the discussion further by suggesting that there are in fact four 'lines of descent' that underpin existing embodiments of the 'risk society' discourse. Firstly, Douglas's anthropological work (1986Douglas's anthropological work ( , 1992 on culture and risk focuses upon cultural exchanges of information on risk factors, as opposed to the scientific communication of risk.…”