Impact of Gender on Offending, Victimization, and Treatment in the Criminal Justice Process in England and Wales

This essay report explores the impact of gender on offending, victimization, and treatment in the criminal justice process in England and Wales. It discusses the gender differences and inequalities present in the criminal justice system and the need for a gender-responsive approach to ensure equality in the justice process.

THINKING ABOUT
CRIME

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Offence or the crime are synonym which means breaking of the law. It is the serious
violation of the human laws. It is an illegal or unlawful act where the individual is punished for
the wrong doing by the judicial system of the country. There is no universally accepted definition
of crime but different statute have different meaning for the certain purpose (Steiker and Steiker,
2019). One of the proposed meaning of crime is an act which harmful in nature not only to
individual buy also to the whole of the community or state. This essay report shall cover the
impact of gender on offending, victimisation and treatment in the criminal justice process in
England and Wales.
MAIN BODY
Criminal justice can be referred to as the process which involves the serious of steps
which begins with criminal investigation and end with releasing the convicted person from the
correctional supervision. There are mainly five stages involved in the criminal justice system
which includes investigation, arrest, pre trial activities, trial, sentence and corrections. Each stage
has different process and step in order to ensure that every person's right to due process is met
effectively.
Gender has been a keen issue where the sex difference is also found in the criminal
justice system, especially in decision making. It is found that gender differences are present in
the criminal justice system where woman are favoured more than man. There is gender
inequality found in every aspect of criminal justice, whether it is relating to crime or punishment.
It is often found that women relates as victims of the crime in the criminal justice system
but in recent trends it is seen that the number of women suspects or accused has grown globally
and at a faster rate than male population in the recent years (Porto, 2017). It has been a
stereotype that women shall be regarded as the victims only and men are accused for the crimes.
There are laws, institutions and policies which are articulations of gender inequality,
norms, values and stereotype which are prevalent in societies and cultures. The laws are made by
victimising the women and for the protection of women only. Rather they must be enacted on the
basis of equality and must be person centric and not gender centric. From the offender's
perspective, the neglect of gender is disconcerting as there is clear view that women who enter
the criminal justice system comes with different experience and background as compared to the

males. It is shown that any woman who commits a crime is firstly seen as victim and then seen as
an offender. There are different needs of women who come in contact with criminal justice
system as compared to male offenders and often deal many range of occurring issues like
consequences of abuse or trauma. It is also found that women who are offenders reports to lower
their self esteem as compared with men offenders as it is a consequence of social and legal norm
which have positioned women as doubly damned and doubly deviant (Nelken, 2017). This
gender inequality have destroyed the criminal justice process where women are often seen as
victims first.
In the country of United Kingdom, the Corston report have marked the milestone in the
area of criminal justice where it is argued that women have been marginalised in this system
which is designed by the men and for the men. It was recommended that gender responsive
criminal justice system must be called off in order to bring equality in the justice process.
Although the implementation of this is very slow but the developments are coming gradually.
For instance, Section 10 of Offender Rehabilitation Act of 2014 provides gender specific
arrangements for the female offenders which make sure that the period of new supervision
complies with the Section 149 of the Equality Act, 2010 (McLellan and Frederick, 2017). But the
restorative justice have remained out of the advancement. Some experts argue that restorative
justice shall be beneficial for female offenders as it focuses on strengthening the informal
relationship but some argue that it is against the morals and ethics of the people to arrange
communication between victim and offender so that accused can get to know the impact which
has been placed on victim's mind. So gender have a major impact on the criminal justice system
where there is inequality which exist in the whole process and discrimination is also present to
treat the male offenders as same as women.
Becoming a victim to the crime is often seen as traumatic experience as it leaves scars
both physically and mentally. A victim is someone who is affected by the crime. Victimisation is
referred to as the process which involves being victimised either from psychological physical,
sexual or moral point of view. Women are often seen as victims to the crimes even if they
commit crimes. This is a society stereotype thinking which exist in the whole society. As women
are considered as the victims and men are considered as offenders, there is gender differences
which result from socially ascribed roles of being female or being male. There is a myth that men
are non victims and women are victims despite the consistent and clear evidence that men are at

risk from all forms of criminal victimisation especially the violent crimes. For instance focusing
on sexual crimes and the victimisation, there is an over riding pattern to the violent crime which
is subverted producing the gender gap relating to the interpersonal violence. It is found from the
study that women are more likely to be victim of domestic violence as compared to men and men
are more likely to be victim of the violence by the stranger or acquaintance (Melville, 2019). In
England and Wales, it is found from the survey of Women's Aid, 2016 that two women every
week are killed by the ex partner or the partner. Rape is another exception where often women
are considered as victims of rape and are blamed for rapes.
The gender have major impact on the victimisation within the criminal justice system as
judiciary may become gender bias when delivering the decision. The law protects against the
victimisation if there is any discrimination on the grounds provided in the Equality Act of 2010
which includes age, disability, race, sex and many other but it does not protect if the person acts
in bad faith by giving false information or making false accusation.
The criminal justice system consists of the court, police, government and private
institutions which works towards rendering justice to the victim and punishing the wrongdoer. It
is very unrealistic to expect from the criminal justice institutions that they will deliver the fair
treatment to all as there are discriminatory policies which persist. It is imperative that this system
provide the equal opportunity to all the persons on the basis of their qualifications irrespective of
their gender, sex or sexual orientation. There are many legislations which are gender centric and
are often regarded as the status offence which are mainly the laws which prohibit certain action
towards people based on their nationality, gender, age, etc. It is found that women who are
imprisoned for any crime being committed by her belongs mainly from socially disadvantaged
family (Mutch and et. al., 2020). So the problem arise during the pre trail detention when they
are the sole care taker of the family as this may lead to long term consequences for the children.
So here the gender biasness arises. Also the male offenders are often presumed to be serious
offenders as compared to female and during the trail female offenders are firstly recognised as
victims and then considered as accused for the concerned offence.
The punishment or penalty are imposed on the offenders based on their gender as the
male may be punished for longer period but the female shall be detained for shorted period as
they are considered as the role model in the family as they are the sole caretaker of the family
and children which is normally a myth. So there has been an impact of the gender on the

offending, victimisation and treatment within the criminal justice system in the country England
and Wales.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above essay report that criminal justice system is a process
which involves punishing the wrong doer and rendering justice to the victim. As there has been
gender stereotypes which discriminate against the men and women while rendering justice, it
impact mentally and physically on their well being. The laws in England and Wales are the
articulations of gender inequality which is prevailing in the culture and society. When a women
is entered as an e=offender, she is often seen as victim first and then secondly as offender and
when she is a victim itself, there comes sympathy and biasness which corrupt the system. Also
the gender have a severe impact on the victimisation and treatment due to social stereotypes and
cultures of the society.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
McLellan, D. and Frederick, M., 2017. Guidelines for Accused Individuals in the Criminal
Justice Process. Available at SSRN 3162623.
Melville, G., 2019. The media and the criminal justice system. In Crime, justice and the
media (pp. 161-192). Routledge.
Mutch and et. al., 2020. Children, adolescents, and FASD in the criminal justice system.
In Decolonising Justice for Aboriginal youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum
Disorders (pp. 18-42). Routledge.
Nelken, D., 2017. Criminal Law and Criminal Justice: Some notes on their irrelation. In Beyond
Law in Context (pp. 121-157). Routledge.
Porto, B., 2017. Norm Enforcement: The Criminal Justice Process. In May It Please the
Court (pp. 151-188). Routledge.
Steiker, C.S. and Steiker, J.M., 2019. The American Death Penalty: Alternative Model for
Ordinary Criminal Justice or Exception that Justifies the Rule?. New Criminal Law
Review, 22(4), pp.359-390.