When assessing the risk of violence, increasing interest has been shown in bringing science and practice closer together. Moving from clinical intuition in the first generation of risk assessment via actuarial scales in the second generation to the structured professional judgments where risk assessments are today produces better, more valid results when assessing the risk of violence. One of the best predictors of violence is gender. Approximately 10% of the violent criminality can be attributed to women; even so, it is increasing, especially among young women. It is therefore important to examine risk assessments from a gender perspective. Another important factor when assessing the risk of violence is psychopathy and there are indications that there might be gender differences in this diagnosis. Thus, a special interest has been focused on psychopathy in this thesis. The purpose with this work is to explore the similarities and differences in assessing risk for violence in male and female mentally disordered offenders, while the overall aim is to validate the violence risk assessment instrument HCR-20 for Swedish offender populations. The risk assessments for all six studies in this thesis were made by trained personnel using the HCR-20 instrument, where psychopathy was diagnosed with the screening version of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL:SV). The study populations were both male and female mentally disordered offenders in either the correctional or the forensic setting. The findings show that both the validity and the reliability of the HCR-20 and the PCL:SV were good and the clinical and risk management subscales were found to have better predictive validity than the historical scale. Another finding was that there were more similarities than differences between genders in the HCR-20, while the opposite applied to the PCL:SV, where the antisocial behavior was performed in a different manner. Moreover, it was found that the gender of the assessor might be a factor to take into account when assessing the risk of violence in women, where the recommendation was that at least one assessor should be female. The conclusions were that the HCR-20 and the PCL:SV can be used In Swedish offender populations with valid results. For female offenders, there are differences in the antisocial behavior that is assessed in order to diagnose psychopathy and these differences tend to underestimate psychopathy among female offenders. Furthermore, the gender of the assessor might be of greater importance than has previously been realized. The overall conclusion was that this thesis supports the structural professional judgment method of making risk assessments in order to prevent violence in the community.

Traditionally offending women are framed through essentialist discourses of pathologisation and the family. Hence, good women are constructed as passive, compliant, vulnerable to victimisation, and nurturers. Offending women are constructed within criminal justice processes as disordered, physiologically and psychologically flawed. Censure or sympathy dispensed to women within the system is contingent on a number of key factors: the type of offence, the category of women involved, and the way in which women interact and negotiate the discourses used to construct their aberrance. The focus of this thesis is offending women and how they are socially constructed through legal and penal discourses within the court and the prison. However this thesis rejects the essentialist framework which positions women as passive recipients of an omnipotent patriarchal criminal justice system and thus having no agency. Nor is this thesis about creating a new entity to encompass all offending women. Instead an anti- essentialist approach is adopted that allows the body, power, and women's agency to be theorised. This approach provides a more complex and detailed account of women's aberrance that acknowledges the diverse range of women, their experiences and negotiations of criminal justice processes. The combination of real women's lived experiences and an alternative theoretical framework provides a very different perspective in which to understand female offending.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-207).

The United States has the largest population of imprisoned persons in the world. The vast majority of these individuals eventually leave prison and re-enter society, facing a number of challenges in the process. Those who are unable to successfully re-enter society run the risk of recidivating back into the prison system. Mentoring has the potential to promote successful re-entry and help offenders to get their lives back on track. Pathfinders of Tarrant County is a unique organization. Its historical position as one of the foremost "welfare to work" programs gives it unique insight into the economic struggles of at-risk individuals and families, and its existing relationships with mentors and other community organizations gives it a rich pool of resources to draw from. By helping to connect participants with community resources, Pathfinders removes quite a bit of the complexity from seeking help at a time when vulnerable people need it most. This thesis presents an overview of how Pathfinders conducts mentoring and its unique brand of social service advocacy, including the unique and not-so unique challenges that a re-entry population may have to offer.

published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Syftet med vår undersökning har varit att, genom intervjuer med brottmålsadvokater, undersöka hur kvinnliga och manliga gärningspersoner framställs inom domstolsväsendet, samt hur detta kan förstås utifrån ett genusperspektiv som visar hur sociala konstruktioner bildas, reproduceras och cementeras utifrån kön och förväntade egenskaper vi tillskriver de olika könen. Vår undersökning är kvalitativ då vi för att besvara vårt syfte samt våra frågeställningar har genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer med ett antal olika brottmålsadvokater som inom sin profession försvarar både kvinnliga och manliga förövare som står åtalade för brott av skiftande allvarlighetsgrad. Som bakgrund till analyserna av empirin har vi använt oss av teoretiska ramar som genus och könsroller samt stereotypisering vilket handlar om den kognitiva snedvridning som kan ske i bedömningen av gärningspersonernas brottslighet. Ett viktigt resultat i studien har visat att det i vissa fall förekommer skillnader i framställningen mellan kvinnliga och manliga gärningspersoner, samt att rättssäkerheten och den lagstadgade objektiviteten genom detta är hotad. / The purpose of this study has been to examine how female and male offenders are represented in the domain of justice substantialised through the Swedish court and legal system. Through interviews with a number of trial lawyers we are aiming for an understanding of these representations related to a gender studies perspective that shows how norms and stereotypes are reproduced and maintained on the basis of sex, gender and expected qualities and capabilities. This study raises questions about objectivity, impartial judgements and in the end justice. We are also trying to illustrate female offenders and how they are perceived in the Swedish court and legal system. Our study is qualitative and to answer our issues we have gone through semi structured interviews with trial lawyers that through their profession has defended both female and male offenders. Our scientific background and theoretical framework is gender and sex studies together with stereotypes and doing stereotypes which is a type of cognitive bias; a subject that we are also presenting. One of the most important results of this study is that there is a difference in how female offenders are represented compared to how male offenders are represented in the Swedish court and law system. Through this result we can see that the statutory objectivity is threatened.

Seventy-five percent of women offenders confined to prison, jails, or residential treatment programs are custodial parents of minor children at the time of their separation. Little is known, though, about how prosocial networks are used to address the effects of separation from children. Using Bui and Morash's conceptualization of the theory of gendered pathways, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to better understand, from the perspective of incarcerated women, the experience of using prosocial networks to cope with the effects of separation. Data were collected through interviews with 10 mothers from 2 residential treatment programs in Michigan. Interview data were inductively coded, then subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. A key finding of this study was that women experience remorse, embarrassment, helplessness, and a sense of failure with respect to providing adequate care for their children and rely on their mothers or other female family members as the primary prosocial influence. Findings also suggest that Child Protective Services (CPS) is viewed by participants as intrusive and outside the prosocial network, yet significant to family reunification and permanency planning for children. Implications for positive social change include recommendations to criminal justice policymakers and Child Protective Services to consider provisions for supportive services for gender-specific programs that build on the influence of other, prosocial, female family members and promote a clear pathway to permanency planning for families, particularly where minor children are involved.

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Society's attitudes toward criminal offenders changed dramatically over the nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century the system of handling offenders in Montreal was highly institutionalized and based on sex- and age-specific treatment involving the Catholic Church, civic and legal authorities, and Protestant reform organizations. / A thematic study of the relationship of female offenders, concerned organizations, and the criminal justice system at the height of industrial capitalism shows that as the economy expanded and the city grew, there were increasing opportunities for women to break the law. Women's crimes were largely determined by their socio-economic status in Canadian society, often crimes of poverty and survival. The growing potential to commit crime was met with a more organized and institutionalized response and the definition of what was considered wayward female behaviour broadened. The growth of the state over the latter part of the nineteenth century in the form of new and expanded juridical and penal structures resulted in an increase in disciplining the population. For women this meant the use of laws and institutions to punish inappropriate social and sexual behaviour. / This thesis explores the gender-specific treatment of female offenders in the new institutions created ostensibly to rescue them: Fullum Street Prison for Women, the Ecole de Reforme, the Girls' Cottage Industrial School, the Juvenile Delinquents' Court, and the female police force. It looks at the construction of "criminal" and "bad" and the flexible usage of certain laws to curb unruly behaviour.

This study investigates numerous questions significant to perception and causal factors of male vs. female criminality in Cato Manor Township and the adjacent Umkhumbane informal settlement, as the researcher believes that understanding plays an important role in preventing the problem. The study confirms the perception that the South African criminal justice system, governmental and non-governmental organizations, community members around the country, and other stakeholders can play a pivotal role in preventing crime. Apart from ignorance, many factors, such as social background and/or status, age, and reasons for committing crimes, equally apply to both males and females, with the former being more likely to commit a greater number of crimes. The findings of this study explain the fact that crime is not pertinent to males only, but also females, yet not nearly enough is being done to prevent crimes committed by females in the country. Ethically and morally it is the role of every individual in the country to prevent crime in different communities by teaching young ones about proper behaviour and reporting crime committed to relevant authorities. In addition, it is vital to offer support to both victims and offenders in the process. Authorities need to know that crime committed by females is increasing greatly in the country, and the South African Police statistics do not make reference to this problem because of many problems which include lack of reporting, police discretion, and so forth. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.