Did you know that more women were accused of being a witch than men. People In Salem, Massachusetts were involved. There was a high number of people being accused of a witchcraft in 1692. Evidence suggests that the Salem Witch trials happened because single women were jealous that they didn't have a husband. Salem Witch Trial in Salem Massachusetts, 1692
Is it better to assume a man is guilty based on stereotypes and prejudice? Evidence must be substantial and confessions must never be forced or excessive. All evidence must be legally obtained, but sometimes things don’t happen the way they are supposed to. For in May of 1993, unspeakable acts rocked the community of West Memphis, Arkansas. Three boys would go on an innocent bike ride and never return, and three older boys were blamed.
Wrongful convictions are a problem that most government officials won’t admit. The United States and other countries such as Australia have been susceptible to these miscarriages of justice. This can arise from a snowball effect of scenarios such as witness misidentification, perjured testimonies, coercive methods of interrogation, prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. These are some of the reasons that can potentially lead innocent people to be convicted of crimes they did not commit. The thousands of exonerations in the United States has caused concern for other nations to reevaluate their criminal justice system.
With millions of criminal convictions a year, more than two million people may end up behind bars(Gross). According to Samuel Gross reporter for The Washington Post, writes that also “even one percent amounts to tens of thousands of tragic [wrongful conviction] errors”(Gross). Citizens who are wrongfully convicted are incarcerated for a crime he or she did not commit. Many police officers, prosecutors, and judges are responsible for the verdict that puts innocents into prison. To be able to get exonerated many wait over a decade just to get there case looked at, not many are able to have the opportunity of getting out.
Since the founding of our judicial system there have always been individuals claiming innocence to a crime that they have been found guilty of, traditionally, after their sentencing no matter how innocent they may or may not be would have to serve, live and possibly die by the decision of their peers. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck alongside Peter J. Neufeld faces this issue by challenging the sentencing of convicted individuals who claim their innocence and have factual ground to stand upon. The Innocence Project uses the recent advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to prove their client’s innocence by using methods that were not available, too primitive or not provided to their clients during their investigation,
Hodell and his colleagues looked at juror gender bias on cases in which a mock jurors determined the guilt of female and male defendants who committed murder. All defendants in their study claimed to be victims of intimate domestic violence and they cited self-defense as their defense. The results of this study were that jurors were more likely to believe a female defendants claim of self-defense than a male defendant claim of self-defense (Hodell, Wasarhaley, Lynch, and Golding, 2014). Hodell, Wasarhaley, Lynch, and Golding (2014) argued that jurors reasoned that a male defendant can defend himself against a female defendant; while it will be harder for a female defendant to defend herself against a male defendant.
Modern horror films are often flooded with a multitude of intricate designs and special effects. The over-use of these elaborate strategies can often consume a film. Although, among Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), this not the case. This horror film utilizes no special effects to convey its tantalizingly psychological horror. The film functions as a Gothic horror film evoking uncertainty in which is embodied within the loss of and breakdown of the female innocence.
Women of color are the most targeted, prosecuted, and imprisoned women in the country and rapidly increasing their population within the prison systems. According to Nicholas Freudenberg, 11 out of every 1000 women will end up incarcerated in their lifetime, the average age being 35, while only five of them are white, 15 are Latinas, and 36 are black. These two groups alone make up 70 percent of women in prison, an astonishing rate compared to the low percentage comprise of within the entire female population in the country (1895). Most of their offenses are non-violent, but drug related, and often these women come from oppressive and violent backgrounds, where many of their struggles occurred directly within the home and from their own family.
In the last couple of decades, women have been on the largely involved in different roles in society. The American woman have come a long way in terms of her position and role in society. For a very long time women were identified by their gender and the patriarchy system that was used by different cultures across the world. Patriarchal can be defined as the aspect in society that looks into male dominance and power over all matters of society and how these privileges are simply handed down to men. It also looks to define how women struggle to gain positions of power while men are simply grabbing these chances from them.
This article is called Feminism and Crime. The author mentions how “women must be “mad” because they go against their natural biological givens such as ‘passivity’ and a ‘weakness of compliance. . .” (The History Learning Site). When Trueman specifically says this, I disagree with the term he used to describe them because I don’t feel they have necessarily gone mad. Moreover, I think this relates to this week’s material because in feminist criminology female offenders respond to the environment around them.
If a woman is living in areas such as the deep south, she is more likely to receive leniency than a woman who is on trial for a crime, while living in areas north of the deep south. It has also been found that depending on where a trial/ crime occurred, marital status and child dependents can play a large role (areas of the deep south) or a small role (areas north of the deep south) in determining a sentence (Holland 2010). According to Doerner and Demuth, it can be said the cause for why areas of the deep south are less likely to incarcerate a female or give women a less favorable outcome, is due to strong social norms and gender ideals that, in general, women are incapable of committing a crime worthy of incarceration. This patriarchal view of women’s innocence can also account for why women who received a “strict” sentencing; the courts tended to focus more on legal factors than extra-legal factors, which goes in accordance with the fact that women are not the only ones to receive a favorable sentencing. If patriarchal views of women are to be ignored, then women would be on equal par with men in terms of extra-legal factors that influence sentencing.
Feminist theory shows the ways of a gender structured life . This culture is also displayed in Crime and Punishment by Sonya and Dunya. Feminist criticism is a type of literary criticism that was well known in the 1970’s. Women would begin taking apart the classics and analyzing how the author portrayed women. The women in Crime and Punishment , especially Sonya and Dunya have a stronger state of mind and are able to handle the pressures and struggles of life better than the men in the novel.
Consequently, there is evidence from studies that draw conclusions that there is gender bias in sentencing for both women and men. On the surface there appears to be a degree of preferential treatment or leniency in the criminal justice system. However, there are other factors that enshroud the whole aspect of biases that include class, race and the offence in question among others. There is need for the justice system to understand female offenders in order to be able to address it effectively and avoid the perpetual claims of bias which only signifies the
Elyot’s Defense of Women had some great argument. One of the argument was if women has ability to perform the same task as men then both sexes are equal, then rulings the nation should be equal which created a topic of gender equity. Early European history proves that women didn’t have any value as human beside getting married and having children. There was a time in out history when women weren’t allowed to get education or work out side of house as professional. The argument toward gender equality was the stepping-stone in Elyot’s defense of good women.
In this research paper demonstrated the equality before the law as it is the fundamental concept of comprehensive legal system. This paper offers an argument on feminist legal theory along with the intellectual and critical investigation of aspects affecting social changes within the society. The paper effectively provides answer to; how does Feminist Legal Theory defines law as well as the role law tends to play in women’s systematised inequality? How Feminist Legal Theory deals with conflicts, diversity and women equality issues? How adaptable and effective is the Feminist Legal theory for challenging situations?
