Few research studies have examined female sexual offending. Furthermore, most of what we know about sexual offending is based on male perpetrators. Our conceptions of female criminals who act outside their designated sexual scripts are formed by prevailing stereotypes of femininity. This research expands the available literature in the field of sexual offending, while examining how women are constituted when it comes to female child sexual offending. I conduct a critical discourse analysis of court transcripts and electronic news articles of cases involving women as child sexual perpetrators. Three criminal cases are examined from Wisconsin, U.S. The goal is to examine whether, and through what processes, traditional sexual scripts are discursively reproduced in court proceedings and media reporting of female sexual offending. Two cases reveal that women who adhere to their expected sexual scripts despite having committed a sexual offense receive sympathetic responses from legal officials and news journalists. The legal and media responses also ensure these women are able to continue their expected roles as women during and following sentencing. On the other hand, one case reveals that women who overtly contravene their expected gender scripts are legally and morally condemned. The call for strict punishment centred upon removing the female offender’s ability to participate in motherhood, because of the offender’s contravention of expected gender scripts by sexually offending against her own children. Furthermore, the male co-offender in this latter case was not deemed to have contravened his sexual scripts, resulting in less social condemnation. Overall, this thesis demonstrates discursive maneuvering that occurs in female sexual offender cases, in which legal officials and news journalists justify offenses based on prevailing notions of femininity. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-18 15:35:49.686

Despite a substantial expanse of literature addressing male sexual offending, the phenomenon of female sexual offending has only recently garnered empirical attention. While research remains nascent in nature, considerable advances have been made in the study of demographics, criminal characteristics, and typologies of female sexual offenders (FSOs). Similarities and differences between male and female sexual offenders have been the source of much speculation; however, hypotheses arising from this speculation have rarely been subjected to empirical scrutiny. Similarly, there has been limited examination of intra-group differences among FSOs. While myriad actuarial assessments have been developed for use with male offenders, similar measures for female offenders are practically non-existent. One notable exception is the Multiphasic Sex Inventory II (MSI II), an instrument with both male and female forms. The present study analyzed, compared, and contrasted the MSI II protocols of 300 male and female adult sex offenders.

Mental health professionals may lack the necessary knowledge and competency to work with female sexual offenders. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to determine whether gender influences attitudes toward sexual offenders and their treatment outcomes among psychology and mental health graduate students. This study was grounded in a dual form of deductive theory; alpha and beta bias was the primary theory and constructivism was the secondary theory. Data were collected from 186 graduate students in mental health programs from multiple universities. The Community Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders and the Attitude Towards the Treatment of Sexual Offender assessments were used to measure attitudes toward sexual offenders and attitudes toward sexual offender treatment. Factorial ANOVAs revealed a main effect for offender gender, with more negative attitudes toward female sexual offenders and the treatment of female sexual offenders. A significant interaction effect was found between gender of participant and gender of offender. Attitudes toward female treatment were more negative, particularly with male participants. Considering that most sexual offender treatment programs and awareness programs are geared toward male offenders, findings may be used to develop more effective policy and treatment for female sexual offenders.

Female sexual offenders have recently become the subject of increased medical, legal and public attention. However, the medical and legal systems insist that female sex crimes are rare regardless of the fact that when sexual victimization experiences are surveyed, the incidence of female perpetrated sex crimes is often higher than expected. Additionally, lay discourses concerning female sexual perpetration remain charged with expressions of disbelief and the vast majority of attention on sexual crimes therefore remains focused on male offenders. As a result, female sexual offenders are understood and treated differently to their male counterparts in the media and medico-legal contexts. In light of the continued denial of female sexual perpetration, this research explored how such beliefs around female sexuality shape the self-knowledge of female sexual offenders. By doing so, this investigation aimed to illuminate how disciplinary power acts to produce self-knowledge that, in turn, leads to the discursive coordinates by which female sexual offenders come to define themselves. This was achieved by interviewing female sexual perpetrators and thereafter drawing on critical discourse analysis in order to interpret the transcriptions of these interviews. The results demonstrated that the participants’ subjective experiences as agents and non-agents in the perpetration of sex crimes relied on social constructions of men, women, motherhood, sexuality and religion. All of the offenders constructed themselves as characteristically female- maternal, passive, vulnerable, victimised and innately virtuous. Their responses drew discernibly on rationalising discourse, gendered discourse, inversions of their femaleness, perceptions of the legal and correctional systems, institutionalised discourse, discourse on rehabilitation and expressions of morality and docility. Most of these discursive patterns, as both instruments and effects of power, simultaneously replicate and reproduce broader social discursive practices that imply that women are harmless, nurturing and incapable of female sexual perpetration. The availability of medical, academic and legal discourse on gender and sexuality allowed the participants to draw on victim discourse, histories of abuse and claims of psychological ailments to justify their crimes. These rationalisations also worked in conjunction with gendered discursive strategies that implied that men are aggressive perpetrators whilst women are harmless victims. As such, the perceived responsibility for the participants’ crimes was most often displaced onto their male accomplices. In this way, the participants upheld their subjective innocence as well as assisted in the maintenance of the construction of the female sexual perpetrator as an unfathomable and impossible construct. This was further emphasised by the fact that not a single participant believed she was guilty of a crime. Such a belief is in line with gendered constructions of criminality as a predominantly male activity. As such, the participants’ reproductions of traditional sexual scripts foreclosed alternative understandings of female sexual perpetration. While dominant patriarchal structures utilise discourse as a means to transmit, produce and reinforce power, this study drew on discourse as a means to resist traditional gendered understandings of sexual offending and to create new configurations of knowledge power by offering counter-knowledge of sex crimes. In doing so, academics, policy makers and the general public have access to a different and novel understanding of female sexuality in light of sexual offending. This has practical implications for the acknowledgement and awareness of female sexual perpetration as well as for future preventative efforts.

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