Criminal law and criminology: a survey of recent books.

• Author: Ferrall, Bard R.
• Position: Bibliography

CRIMINOLOGY-THEORY

ANETTE BALLINGER, DEAD WOMAN WALKING: EXECUTED WOMEN IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 1900-1955 (Aldershot, Ashgate/Dartmouth, 2000) 374pp.

The author applies gender analysis of women's criminality to the cases of fifteen women executed in the twentieth century in Wales and England. A significantly larger number of women were sentenced, but not actually executed. Why were these particular women executed? The author finds that the two groups cannot be adequately distinguished on the facts of their crimes. Moreover, gender-neutral explanations fail when the cases of the executed women are analyzed, compared with each other, and contrasted with the cases of women capitally sentenced but not ultimately executed. After presenting theories on how gender-specific norms develop from a social discourse where the female construction of reality is subordinate to the male construction, the author finds that in their lives the women actually executed had deviated from patriarchal definitions of acceptable feminine behavior. Women who had committed similar crimes, but had not otherwise shown the same deviation, may have been sentenced to death, but were usually reprieved. The author considers cases of spousal murder and points out how the judicial defenses such as provocation or self-defense are much less successful when a woman kills her spouse or partner.

The situation has changed somewhat since the years covered in this study, although the courts continue to be influenced by constructions of male and female behavior that were developed in the past.

JOAN MCCORD, CATHY SPATZ WIDOM AND NANCY A. CROWELL, EDS., JUVENILE CRIME, JUVENILE JUSTICE--PANEL ON JUVENILE CRIME: PREVENTION, TREATMENT AND CONTROL (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2001) 384pp.

To shed light on the effects of mandates of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the panel analyzed the available data on juvenile crime and justice system processing, and reviewed the literature on the causes, prevention and treatment of juvenile crime. The panel also examined racial disparities in the juvenile justice system.

The chief concerns of the panel were the collection and use of juvenile crime statistics, the development and prevention of delinquency, and the problem of racial disparity. The panel notes that juvenile crime increased significantly in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fears aroused by this increase, as well as predictions that the trend would continue...