The Female Homicide Offender

Why do some female homicide offenders commit serial murder? The answer to this question has eluded criminal profilers and police officers for decades. Although researchers have offered some tentative explanations based on the limited cases documented, no systematic treatment of this phenomenon has occurred in the popular and academic literature--at least not until now. In this engaging, accessible, and detailed book, authors Stacey L. Shipley, Psy.D. and Bruce A. Amigo, Ph.D. put many of the missing pieces together, shedding new and provocative light on this fascinating though deadly crime. Relying on insights from psychology and criminology, they argue that unresolved trauma following poor or severed childhood attachments to parents can result in disorderly conduct in adolescents who act delinquently and psychopathic adults who behave criminally. In order to test this theory, Shipley and Arrigo turn to the high profile case of Aileen Wuornos, a woman executed in 2002 for the cold blooded and calculated murders of seven men. Challenging conventional wisdom that female killers are victims of abuse, the authors provide a cogent and penetrating analysis, raising many disturbing questions about the nature of predatory and serial murders committed by women. Going well beyond the confines of the Aileen Wuornos case, Shipley and Arrigo also examine the ethical dilemmas inherent in a culture of violence where the systems of criminal justice and mental health seemingly fail to assist persons in profound distress. At issue here is the manner in which society helps to create the female homicide offender, including those women who kill repeatedly.

Scholarship in criminology over the last few decades has often left little room for research and theory on how female offenders are perceived and handled in the criminal justice system. In truth, one out of every four juveniles arrested is female and the population of women in prison has tripled in the past decade. Co-authored by Meda Chesney-Lind, one of the pioneers in the development of the feminist theoretical perspective in criminology, the subject matter of The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime, Second Edition redresses the balance by providing critical insight into these issues. Bringing much-needed attention to the state of these often "invisible" wrongdoers, The Female Offender enlightens and intrigues readers including academics, researchers, and students in the areas of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and women’s studies. Likewise, anyone seeking cutting-edge information about a growing offender population will want to read this book.

The Female Offender challenges the long-standing tradition of male dominated criminology theory and research, which has taken little or no account of gender differences.

The volume explores every aspect of females who murdered—from arrest through sentencing—and provides descriptions of ecological and other circumstances of the murders, the victims, the motives of the perpetrators, and their fates in court. The generous utilization of case examples dramatically reveals the homicide scenarios. This exploratory, descriptive study compares 296 females arrested for homicide in six urban areas—Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and New York City—in 1979 and 1983. During field trips to these cities, which have the highest murder rates in the country, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from police files, homicide records, F. B. I. reports, and criminal court information. Research analyses reveals a fascinating profile of today's female murderer. When Women Kill presents a comprehensive, yet highly readable, overview of this previously neglected subgroup of homicide offenders.

Taking a sociological approach, this reader addresses the diverse array of crimes against women and offers a compilation of research on this often minimized topic. Rich in conceptualization and theory, these readings tackle topics from the victimrsquo;s perspective and include media images, legal analysis, and official statistics. Material is presented within historical, legal, and social contexts so readers get a comprehensive understanding of female victimization. Throughout the collection, the causes of female victimization are examined, the responses from the criminal justice system are considered and the consequences for society are revealed.

This is the first book to study the role coercion plays as a pathway into crime for women who are arrested alongside other defendants. Drawing on court files and newspaper accounts, it analyzes four cases of women who were arrested alongside a partner and who argued in their defense that they had been coerced. Charlotte Barlow examines these cases from a feminist perspective that allows her to highlight the importance of gender expectations and gendered discourse in both the trials themselves and the way the media covered them.

This text provides a comprehensive and unique view into the world of women interacting with the criminal justice system.

​Female offenders are often perceived as victims who commit crimes as a self-defense mechanism or as criminal deviants whose actions strayed from typical ‘womanly’ behavior. Such cultural norms for violence exist in our gendered society and there has been scholarly debate about how male and female offenders are perceived and how this perception leads to differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This debate is primarily based upon theories associated with stereotypes and social norms and how these prescriptive norms can influence both public and criminal justice response. Scholars in psychology, sociology, and criminology have found that female offenders are perceived differently than male offenders and this ultimately leads to differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This interdisciplinary book provides an evidence based approach of how female offenders are perceived in society and how this translates to differential treatment within the criminal justice system and explores the ramifications of such differences. Quite often perceptions of female offenders are at odds with research findings. This book will provide a comprehensive evidence-based review of the research that is valuable to laypersons, researchers, practitioners, advocates, treatment providers, lawyers, judges, and anyone interested in equality in the criminal justice system. ​