This research examines the effect of gender on perpetration characteristics and empathy in a sample of juvenile sex offenders in Massachusetts using feminist criminological and gendered theory perspectives. Through the use of ordered logistic regression, I evaluate whether or not a perpetrator’s gender has an impact on the characteristics of the offense (such as the use of penetration, fellatio, genital touching, or masturbation) or the levels of empathy and remorse experienced by the offender. The results show that gender only has a significant effect on penetrative acts and remains non-significant for the remaining variables. I have concluded that the non-significance of gender lessens the dissimilarities between juvenile male and female offenders, suggesting that the female offenders are less influenced by gendered socialization. Future research should focus less on the differences between boys and girls and more on those variables that are significant: prior victimization, behavior problems, and problems in school.

Violence risk assessment is important given the impact and consequences it has on offenders, victims and the public. Different tools have been developed to assess an offender’s risk. However, so far these tools are based on male theories of offending and its applicability among female offenders has been questioned by proponents of the gendered perspective. The gendered perspective argues that violence and criminal behaviour emerges based on experiences that are different between men and women. The present systematic review aims to inform about the predictive validity of current risk assessment tools among female offenders to establish whether there is a need to develop female-specific tools. 17 studies have been reviewed and evidence overall supports the gendered perspective by showing that current tools have no, or only a limited, ability to predict future behaviour among women. Some promising results have been delivered by tools that include the ‘central eight’ risk factors which indicates that some of these factors might be relevant for female risk assessment. However, consideration of qualitative and quantitative differences of risk factors should be included in risk assessment among women to improve the predictive validity. The results are discussed in the light of a feminist perspective but also give a critical view on violence risk assessment in general. Overall, this systematic review calls for more research thatfocuses on gender-specific risk factors and that promotes the development of new tools.

The exploration of the four key themes of leadership, spirituality, ethics and values and their relationship between and with employers and employees in human service charitable NGOs in Perth, Western Australian, provided the main purpose for the current research. In addition, the purpose included examining the impact of charities operating as if they were for-profit businesses; the impact of faith and secularity on the work of charities; and possible gender differences arising from the themes within this context. The qualitative research was undertaken using hermeneutic phenomenological methodology; however, feminism, post-modernism and narrative practices were used to elicit additional perspectives from the resulting material. The current research used a broad-ranging, multi-disciplinary approach, thus encompassing a literature review of the philosophical, ethical, psychological, theological and anthropological disciplines as it tracked some of the material’s substantial heritage. Additionally, the research focussed on the experience of charitable workplace cultures which provide the context for the delivery of human services, and discussed the current charitable human services paradigm. A total of 46 individuals from 8 different charities participated through in-depth interviews. They included organisational leaders, management and front-line workers who provided collectively and individually a rich mine of material for exploration and discovery from which to unravel the essence of the responses. / The emerging conclusions provide the capacity to view the charitable organisation from a gendered perspective, as female, thus reflecting the profile of the workforce; while also uncovering substantial discrimination and inequity in employment conditions. Leadership styles were gendered, as were the discourses on ethics, values and spirituality. Organisational size was a key factor in determining values and changing perspectives matched more closely, the business paradigm. The faith and secularity of each NGO also presented opportunities to map organisational intention around leadership, spirituality, ethics and values such that further research opportunities have been highlighted across the results.