Women killers throughout the 20th century, for example, have never gone above 10% of all killers, despite enormous changes in society, technology, gender role expectations. Those getting the death penalty tend to be less. But in the earlier centuries where the percentages of women executed were somewhat higher, it was only because women were getting executed for “crimes” like witchcraft, adultery, and slave insurrection activities.

When women do kill, there is more often a history of severe mental illness (schizophrenia) and the killing is typically limited to their children. They don’t tend to “prey” on people on the street. The number of female spree killers or mass killers is so small that you can practically find a book on every single one of them. And even in those cases, it’s not always clear how much the woman was an active participant in the crime vs. a clueless, intimidated enabler partner type. (Think of all the women who are in prison for drug offenses, like helping their boyfriend make a delivery, who were no where near major dealer status, but are still in prison for 20 years.)I know it’s not cool to say that women often act as clueless enablers. We like to think that we’re just as big and tough as the guys, and that we often, for some reason, act embarrassed when the marketing people and the statistics show that we aren’t. Yea, a few individuals are. The Arlene Wuorno’s of the world. But as a group, our “Cool” violent tendencies just don’t measure up.

Nevertheless, female executions are up, especially in those chivalrous southern states, which suggests that female equity in this area is not a sign of progressive politics, but general social backwardness and reaction. Female executions account for 1.22% of the total post 1977 executions up to the end of 2002. From 1900-1962, there was an average of 0.634 per year, nationwide. Over the last 5 years the female execution rate has increased to almost 2 per year.

And very often, when gender “equality” is trumpeted, it really has nothing to do with equality at all. But it has everything to do with ignoring evidence and/or special circumstances which are very sexist. Take this 1934 execution, discussed at the Crime library site. Anna Antonio by all accounts was a severely battered wife whose life was controlled by her husband. She was accused on arranging for a contract killing. The killer himself said she had nothing to do with it. There was no real evidence to link her to her husband’s death. But she got fried at Sing Sing anyway. How did then Governor Lehman explain away this travesty of justice? GENDER EQUITY BY GOD! “The law makes no distinction of sex in the punishment of crime; nor would my own conscience permit me to do so.”

So it seems to me that when women start getting “equal” sentences, it has less to do with fair treatment and more to do with double standards. “Iffy” cases involving women have to get longer sentences–the schizophrenic, the battered wife exercising the right to self-defence as opposed to the kid who deliberately shot down three people in a drive-by shooting or the serial rapist-killer. Treating those cases “the same” is not progress. It’s proclaiming a double standard. Mentally ill women will be treated more harshly than mentally ill men so as to even out the numbers. Women acting in self-defense will be treated more harshly then men acting in self-defense.

That ain’t progress, ladies and gentlemen.

There ARE financial reasons for preferring a prison anyway, though: universities are tax exempt (don’t generally pay property tax) so if they’re on expensive land it can be a huge cost to the town. Also, depending on the town, the jobs provided by a prison may be better suited to the population that needs more work.

My opinion? Not compelling–I’d take the university over a prison every time. But those are two of the reasons I’ve heard cited most often.

You’d get similar or worse results with the states.

[I'm not sure whether the "class" referred to above is immigrants, men, poor people, or black people. In any case, JustaDog, I don't think your posts here are helping to move the discussions on "Alas" in a positive direction. For that reason, I'm asking you to not post to "Alas" any more. Thank you. --Amp]

How about a study that shows a direct relationship between being responsible and respecting others? Those people - whatever their race - will find they are less likely to be locked up.

I don’t believe in making excuses for criminals or trying to be sympathetic to them.

I suspect there is a pervasive belief that ONLY poor, black n’hoods have a widespread drug problem.

Lawyer quality is definitely an issue. I would not say that the rich man’s lawyer is better per se. The Federal Public Defender has a HELL of a lot more cases than private defense. FPDs go toe-to-toe w/ US Attorneys. They are damn good at what they do. I think there is definitely an issue with previous convictions/pleas and the quality of defense in state cases. Especially regarding juveniles. A wealthy kid’s parents will likely know about the possibility of expungement, hire a lawyer who has more time than the state PDs (which are not as plentiful or as well-funded as FPDs), and will have that record expunged (particularly in light of the above results).

The author was also, impressingly, very forthright that the two hypotheses that could explain his findings (one: judges are racists and sexists, two: there were other legitimate sentencing factors that a study can’t get at) would both produce the same observed outcome, making it hard to know which was going on. (My guess is: both).

I am sure he controlled for both of those, to be honest. I confess to being surprised at how LOW the disparity was. I suspect it is higher in state cours.

Just kidding. Seems like a very solid study.

Some of the disparities seem easy enough to explain. Law or no law, female privilege gets women out of taking full responsibility for their crimes; judges hate to send “that poor gal” to stir for twenty years so they find ways to justify lower sentences.

I find it interesting that the two crimes with the largest black-white disparity are bank robbery and drug trafficking. Bank robbery I don’t know about, but I have a hypothesis for the drug trafficking: the judges are concerned about neighborhoods. Black dealers mainly traffic in poorer areas, and white dealers mainly traffic in richer areas. The judge doesn’t feel too bad about the degradation the white dealers are doing to Cherry Creek because they don’t see any; they also see what Capitol Hill looks like so they come down harder on people trafficking in those areas.

I also wonder about the impact of lawyer quality. Sentencing isn’t supposed to take class into account, but surely lawyer quality has an impact on what the judge is working with, and surely rich people have better lawyers.