Violent and Sexual Offending - Essay Example

?Violent and Sexual Offending Introduction This paper examines female sex offending, its legal issues such as whether women can be liable to conviction for rape, or the types of offences women can be liable to conviction for, as well as statistics of arrests, and numbers of females in prison in comparison to that of males. Other themes in the paper include minimization and denial of female sexual offending, theoretical foundations such as the chivalry hypothesis and the biological arguments, as well as gender norms, particularly attitudes to female aggression and violence. Finally, the paper will outline the different typologies associated with female sexual offenders and issues on concealment of their offending behaviour. Female sexual offenders in perspective A female sexual offender is a woman who is liable for conviction for a sexual offence and/or a non-sexual offence that has sexual motivation, or a woman who has admitted to a sexual offence pending conviction. Female sex offenders have gone unnoticed over the years (Ford, 2006), particularly because a vast majority of attention has conventionally focused on men as offenders thereby overlooking the female offenders who have been hiding in plain sight. Contrary to conventional belief, particularly due to the pervasive underrepresentation of female sexual offenders, a remarkable awareness of females as sexual offenders has emerged in the recent past with the substantial cases of inappropriate and illegal sexual contact between females and boys (Finkelhor & Williams, 1988). The seemingly low incidence of female-propagated sex crimes and their under-recognition is because of several factors such as societal and cultural stereotypes, professional biases, as well as challenges that impede the efficacy of research methodologies, and other unique dynamics that influence victims’ disclosures of these offenses. Female sexual offenders are not easily identifiable since they do not fit the stereotypical description of male sexual offenders, and they hardly offend against strangers or stalk serial victims; in this regard, child sexual abuse is a multifaceted, socially contextual issue that deserves more attention (Mathews, 2012). Females, including grandmothers and prepubescent girls, have committed sexual crimes against infants, children, and teenagers by use of varied degrees of coercion and violence; this implies that females too can be pedophiles since they are attracted to children (Goode, 2011). Policy frameworks concerning female sexual offenders have been constrained by the insufficient or total lack of research concerning female sexual offenders, and to make matters worse, the few studies on the topic have failed to establish considerable levels of sexual offense recidivism, while research on subtypes of female sexual offenders has never been consistent in its findings. Female adolescent sexual offenders have been found to have a history of having been sexually abused earlier in life (Hendriks & Bijleveld, 2006), sometimes with multiple or closely related offenders; in as much as there is no concordance between sexual victimization and offending tendencies, it is a leading predisposing factor for most offending females. Despite common sense beliefs, it is imperative for both investigators and practitioners to take cognizance of the fact that females can, and in fact, they do commit serious sexual crimes that can potentially result to serious damage to victims (Denov, 2004a). Legal issues regarding female sexual offenders There legal issues surrounding female sexual offenders revolve around crucial policy matters such as the nature of female sexual offenses, and the legality of prosecution of female sexual offenders; legally, women are in culpable of rape since laws have focused on protecting women. Under section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act of 1956, only a man can commit rape, though a woman can be convicted for aiding and abetting rape or any other sexual offense accordingly, under the legal framework (O’Connor, 1987). The Accessories and Abettors Act of 1861 provides for the trial and punishment of persons who aid, abet, counsel, or procure s facilitation of offenses such as sexual abuse as the primary offenders. Sexual offenses involving mature females and minor males tend to be overlooked than those involving mature males and young females, and it is difficult for females who commit sexual crimes to be convicted because a number of factors conspire to keep these women from being detected and prosecuted. For instance, the societal and cultural stereotypes, professional biases, as well as problems with research methodologies, and unique dynamics influence victims’ disclosures of such offenses making it impossible for women to be convicted of rape. Surveys have established that a vast majority of both male and female victims of female sexual abuse would rather keep quiet about it rather than report (Elliott 2004); whereas the girls find it hard to convince others that females can be abusive, society has not normalized victimization of boys. Furthermore, the physiological responses of boys to female sexual offenders can potentially confuse their sense of consent, making it hard for them to explain how sexual abuse could possibly have occurred yet a sexual act occurred. Since female sexual offenders do not fit the stereotypical description of male sex criminals, they are hardly identifiable and existing laws protecting individuals have only focused on women as victims and not as offenders (Kemshall, 2004). Conventionally, rape has carried severe penalties than any other sexual crimes, but its definition has been limited to a forced vaginal intercourse; broadened legal descriptions of rape have still failed to capture the issue of female sexual offenders. In this respect, females are legally incapable of committing rape, and as such, female sex offenders cannot be held accountable for rape in a court of law because of this pervasive shortfall in legislation. Women are mostly convicted of crimes of indecency, offenses such as indecent behaviour, outraging public decency and exposure; these female crimes are normally dealt with at common law, but even so, the act has to be extremely lewd, grossly scandalous to the extent that it thoroughly outrages public decency, offends, or disgusts. Female offenders convicted of indecency are usually liable to punishment by law through fines, or imprisonment, or both; there is usually no limit to the sentence in such crimes but under no circumstances are they supposed to be excessive. Indecent assault is handled under sections 14 and 15 of the Sexual Offenses Act 1956, which criminalizes such offenses as suggesting sexual intercourse with victims whether boy, or girl if they are under 16 years. Indecent assault on a man is subject to a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment while on a female below thirteen years of age, it is punishable by a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment; if the female victim of indecent assault is above 13 years, the crime is punishable by 2 years imprisonment. Sexual offenses against vulnerable groups have also been reported, particularly involving incapacitated or dependent adults, or minors who have been abused by caregivers; about 59% of children who reported sexual abuse to Child Line between 2008 and 2009 revealed their abusers to be in the family (NSPCC, 2009). Other female sexual offenses include exhibitionism or exposure, as well as voyeurism, all of which have been reported in the past, and are punishable under the law as well. Initially, exhibitionism was largely been associated with males, who are thought to relieve castration anxiety by exposing their genitalia and eliciting a response from female victims in psychodynamic formulations, unlike females who have nothing to lose. However, female genital exposure or exhibitionism, unlike in males, usually stops short of genital exposure and has been attributed to the need for attention; other studies have also linked female exposure to psychopathic personalities. Voyeurism entails the sexual interest or practice of spying on people who are engaged in intimate behaviours such as sexual intercourse, or undressing; it may also entail making of secret photographs or video of the subjects, who are often unaware of being observed. Voyeurism has been classified as a sex offense that results to the violation of trust and traumatic effect on victims; for instance, section 162 of the Canadian Criminal Code declares voyeurism to be a sexual offense. Statistics Official statistics for convictions and cautions or arrests suggest that female sex offenders are highly underrepresented in the justice system since a very small proportion of females usually enter the criminal justice system for sexual offenses against children. In as much as the numbers of female sexual offenders who enter the criminal justice system is small and insignificant compared to that of men, the exact figures are also not readily available due to inconsistencies in conceptualization of female sex offenders (Brayford, 2012). Roughly, official U.S, U.K and Canada statistics indicate that nearly 1.2-8% of those convicted of sexual offenses are female in general; mostly, female offenders are hidden from the criminal justice system by diverting to mental health system. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, about 2.2% of persons arrested for sexual abuse every year between 1993 and 1997 were females, and the whole figure amounts to nearly 10,000 females who were arrested every year for violent sexual offenses (Oliver, 2007). Compared to the high number of male sex offenders in the criminal justice system, it is clear that female sex offenders are highly underrepresented (Gannon, & Cortoni 2010 p3), and this indicates that female sexual offenses are highly underreported in many cases. Underreporting may be attributed to several factors; for instance, women may mask sexually inappropriate contact with children under the pretence of childcare (Bunting, 2007). Moreover, a vast number of the female sexual offenses are usually incestuous in nature, and the children are less likely to report such abuse, particularly if the offender is their mother. Minimization and denial of female sexual offenders A vast majority of female sex offenders has been overlooked for many years due to the intricate subtlety nature of female sexual offending and the fact that victims hardly disclose the abuse; as a result, the issue of female sexual offending has not been given the attention it deserves in the past. Furthermore, female sexual offending discourses are thoroughly limited due to both societies and individual’s unwillingness to accept that females can, and indeed do propagate sexual offenses (Bunting, 2005). The widespread denial of female sexual offending both in offenders and in society is the greatest reason behind the pervasive underrepresentation of female sexual offenders in the criminal justice system. Women have traditionally been thought to be the victims of sexual offense, and not even once have they been considered propagators of the vice; as a result, boys have been socialized not to report victimization since it is not usual in society that boys can also be victims while females can be offenders. Practitioners agree that gender greatly affects how cases of female sexual offending are treated (Nelson, 1994), and most importantly, interviews with professionals reveal that there is a high tendency towards disbelief and minimization, the lack of acceptance that females might equally contribute to, or instigate abuse on their own volition (Denov, 2004a). The legal dimension of sexual offenses also suffers from the pervasive stereotypical assumption that females cannot offend since the male partners usually coerce them, and the stringent proof requirements for prosecution of female offences further constrain the criminal justice system. The serious lack of acceptance and denial of female sexual offending has largely contributed to the underreporting of such cases to the criminal justice system; for that matter, there is need for raising awareness among practitioners in the criminal justice system to clear this misconception (Denov, 2003b). Whereas the national child protection policy does not mention the issue of sex offending explicitly, the present statistics in child protection registries do not disclose the gender of the perpetrators either, be it in relation to sexual or any other type of abuse. The serious lack of awareness or unwillingness to accept the idea that female sex offenders are potential perpetrators of child sexual abuse is a major barrier to the identification and prosecution of offenders who commit this kind of crime. Professionals in the criminal justice system encounter a lot of trouble identifying and responding to this type of abuse because of its subtleness and intricacies; in this respect, there is need for policy to make it clear that sex offenders can be female as well as male to dispel the views that they can only be male. Theoretical foundations - Chivalry hypothesis versus Biological arguments According to the Chivalry hypothesis, females seem to be treated more leniently throughout the system than males; the idea that women are victims who need protection emerged in the chivalry period of the Middle Ages in Europe. The outcomes of the criminal justice system have always been subject to the “sex effect,” in that females usually receive more lenient treatment than men; the history of women’s delinquency shades light on the disparities in the treatment of both genders. Conventionally, female offenders have been discounted because of their small percentages, in relation to men; additionally, female offenders have been viewed as either abnormal due to mental, emotional, or familial challenges, or simply unfeminine. The sex effect plays itself at various levels of the criminal court proceedings, from negotiation, to prosecution, to conviction, and sentencing. In relation to female sexual offenses, offenders get away with far less strict sanctions, particularly because either the victims are too young to witness or they are too traumatized by the abuse to take the stand as credible witnesses (Lin Song, Lieb, and Donnelly, 1993). The biological construct suggests that certain kinds of biological factors, such as hormones, predispose certain individuals to engaging in sex offenses than others; high testosterone levels have particularly been associated with increased sex drive and aggression. Similarly, other biological theorists have argued that some persons may be predisposed to a high risk of difficult sexual behaviours due to their physiologically or biologically determined sexual drives or sexual likings. Furthermore, the biological construct contends that while there is no specific gene responsible for rape tendencies, the likelihood of an individual to sexually abuse is associated with evolution, either as an adaptation in itself, or because of adaptations such as the pursuit of many partners. The biological perspective of sexual offenses regards sexual activity with limited men as desirable for women, thus, they have evolved to resist sexual abuse; the implication of this biological construct, therefore, is that only men, and not women are capable of sexual offending. In as much as the biological foundation of sexual offending does not give leeway for perpetrators, it does, to some considerable extent, contribute and propagate ideas that excuse perpetrators from responsibility. For instance, for the sake of the argument in this paper, the biological construct perpetrates the beliefs that females are not capable of sexually offending, thereby exonerating them from responsibility (Denov, 2004b). Gender norms - attitudes to female aggression and violence Studies have long established the existence of gender differences in aggression and violence, leading to the conclusion that female violence and aggression is not viewed the same as male violence and aggression. A vast majority of these studies suggest that aggressive women are viewed more negatively than aggressive men, and the more physical force a female uses, the more negatively they are viewed (Barber, Foley & Jones, 1999), particularly because it is unfeminine for women to be violent or aggressive. Society tends to normalize male aggression and violence while thoroughly condemning females who commit the same kind of crime; the more negative attitudes towards female aggressors, particularly females who use physical aggression, is more likely to result to unfair treatment of potential perpetrators. The pervasiveness of these social biases tends to perpetrate attitudes that inhibit the perceptions of aggressive females, implying that aggressive female actions are more inappropriate than those committed by males are. However, gender norms make it seem almost certain that females cannot potentially be violent or physically aggressive since it is not culturally appropriate; women are viewed as victims of violence rather than perpetrators since unlike men, they are not predisposed to being violent. The idea of femininity as a cultural standard for females has been perpetrated in society and social relationships are based on a subtle knowledge that men are sexually aggressive and dominant, while females are generally passive and genteel; in other words, cultural norms prescribe politeness for females while permitting to a certain degree, aggressiveness, and violence in males. The implications for this sort of skewed perspective is that female aggressors often go unnoticed and their actions are often not given the seriousness they deserve due to minimization and disbelief, that indeed females can be aggressive. Typologies of female sexual offenders Professionals have attempted to identify different typologies of sexually abusive women, in an attempt to categorize the specific sub-groups of female sexual offenders basing on potential commonalities; there are three main typologies of female sexual offenders and these include the male-coerced, predisposed, and teacher/lover typologies (Carson, 2006). The male-coerced typology comprises of passive and dependent women, who have an earlier background of sexual abuse and/or relationship problems; afraid of abandonment, such women are often pressured by their male partners to perpetrate sex offenses, particularly against their own children. For instance, in one instance, a husband coerced a woman to permit the sexual abuse of their biological daughter, and later, the same girl was involved in sexual encounters between the couple (Vandiver, 2006). The predisposed typology comprises of women with histories of incestuous sexual victimization, which is the most widespread form of child sexual abuse (Alokan, 2012), psychological problems, and deviant sexual fantasies; these women mostly act alone in their sexual offending and they tend to victimize their own children or other young children in their families. Finally, the teacher/lover typology comprises women who often struggle with peer relationships; in most cases, these women seem to regress and to perceive themselves as being in romantic or sexually mentoring “relationships” with young adolescent victims who they have a sexual preference towards, and as such, they do not consider their acts as inappropriate. For instance, a woman who allowed her three-year-old daughter to touch her boyfriend’s manhood and to watch them while engaging in sex did not consider it an offence since according to her, she was educating her daughter. Concealment of female offending behaviour Victims of female sexual offending do not report such crimes in most cases and would rather conceal disclosures, thereby leading to underreporting of these crimes; whereas the girls cannot convince others that females can perpetrate sexually offensive behaviours, boys find it hard to report victimization, particularly because society has not socialized them to do so. Furthermore, since boys are naturally predisposed to producing physiological responses to female sexual offenders they are more likely to be confused about whether or not there was consent, making it hard for them to explain how sexual abuse could possibly have occurred yet a sexual act took place. The subtlety of female offending behaviour is partly associated with its non-violent in nature that makes physical proof of abuse rare; besides, society applies a double standard towards female and male offenders of sexual abuse when the victim is a teenager of the opposite sex (Sahl & Keene, 2010). For instance, when an adult woman sexually abuses an adolescent male, society seems to permit that kind of sexual contact to some considerable extent but it is less permissive if the sexual contact involves an adult male and an adolescent. Conclusion Ultimately, female sexual offending does occur since females too can, and they do perpetrate sexual abuse; a rising awareness of females as sexual offenders has emerged with the substantial cases of inappropriate and illegal sexual contact between females and boys. Female sexual offenders do not fit the stereotypical description of male sexual offenders, and they hardly offend against strangers or stalk serial victims. Legally, women are incapable of rape but can be convicted for aiding and abetting rape or any other sexual offense accordingly; women are mostly convicted of crimes of indecency, and exposure, in addition to voyeurism. Official US, UK and Canada statistics indicate that nearly 1.2-8% of those convicted of sexual offenses are female but many female offenders are hidden from the criminal justice system by diverting to mental health system. High tendency towards disbelief and minimization in the criminal justice system due to the lack of acceptance that females might equally contribute to, or instigate abuse on their own volition. According to the Chivalry hypothesis, females seem to be treated more leniently throughout the system than males while the biological construct suggests that certain kinds of biological factors, such as hormones, predispose certain individuals to engaging in sex offenses than others. Generally, aggressive women are viewed more negatively than aggressive men, and the more physical force a female uses, the more negatively they are viewed. The three main typologies of female sexual offenders and these include the male-coerced, predisposed, and teacher/lover typologies. Victims of female sexual offending do not report such crimes in most cases and would rather conceal disclosures; whereas the girls cannot convince others that females can perpetrate sexually offensive behaviours, boys find it hard to report victimization, particularly because society has not socialized them to do so. References Alokan, F.B., 2012, "Child Sexual Abuse: A Potential Damage to Children", Journal of Educational and Social Research, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 357-363. Barber, M. E., Foley, L. A., & Jones, R. (1999). Evaluations of aggressive women: The effects of gender, socioeconomic status, and level of aggression. Violence and Victims, 14(4), 353-63. 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