Abstract There is a general perception that women are victims and men are the perpetrators of sexual offense. Female perpetrators of sexual crimes have been neglected in the research literature, because female sex offenders do not live up to preconceptions of female as motherly and caring. Females tend to be responsible for a very small portion of all crimes and are estimated to account for 1-2% of all sexual offenses. Theories use to discuss female sex offending include neutralization of behavior, mental health and feminist theory. The aim of the present study was to describe female sex offenders and examine the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim by analyzing court judgments. Convictions ( N=22) from the Swedish district courts, where female convicted of sexual crimes in accordance with legislation on sexual crimes during the years 2008-2013 were examined. Significantly more females (82%) denied the offenses they were charged off. The majority of the perpetrators had a relationship with the victims and carried out their crimes with a male accomplice. Of the 27 sexual crimes perpetrated, 63% of the victims were under 18 years old and were primarily female. Most women in this study were given a sanction of a non-custodial nature. Female sex offenders are a relatively unexplored group of sexual offense perpetrators. They do exist and sexual offending causes a great deal of harm to victims and society, so it is worth studying. Keywords: Female perpetrator, female criminals, sexual crimes, convictions, female.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-20174 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Boije, Gerthy |
| Publisher | Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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