Introduction
This presentation will try to formulate a decent research question by exploring relevant databases. Such skills are essential for future scholars interested in testing hypotheses and giving evidence-based conclusions about different acute social issues. The database for this presentation is taken from the site of the British government (Ministry of Justice, 2019). It indicates detailed statistics about the prison population in England and Wales and covers the period from April to June 2019.
Database
For the analysis, I have chosen the database from the national statistics quarterly available on the website of the British government. There you can find a variety of different databases about governmental spending and overall statistics. What has interested me is the excel file about the prison population in prisons in Wales and England. This dataset is highly detailed because it presents information about ethnic groups, gender, religion, nationality, age group, etc. This file is made specifically for a more thorough look at different statistical computing applications like R or Python.
What Is the Relation Between Sentences Severity and Sex?
Before presenting my findings, I will search for relevant concepts and theories from academic scholarship. On this slide, I have put arguments arguing that women are receiving harsher sentences than men. This discussion is not about the number of prisoners because it is evident that the overwhelming majority of prisoners are males. Instead, it focuses on the length of prison sentences among men and women.
First, labeling theories say that stronger groups will exercise their power over weaker ones. In this context, men will dominate women by giving them harsher sentences because women are considered as weak. The second argument here speaks about the influence of institutional racism in the British prison system. Holland and Prohaska (2021) indicate that although women are perceived with sympathy, it does not apply to women of color. By this logic, White women will receive shorter sentences than Black, Asian or Hispanic women. Unfortunately, this consistent pattern cannot be verified through my methods. Finally, the “evil women hypothesis” tells that there is an image of women who cannot commit some untraditional types of crimes. Thus, it leads to longer sentences in situations when women are convicted of untraditional crimes.
Theoretical Background
Here, on the contrary, arguments are presented that suggest that women receive lighter sentences. The concept of “paternalism” draws attention to the preserved patriarchy of relations between men and women, which leads to the opinion that women, like children, cannot adequately answer for their actions. Also, a distinctive pattern is that women are economically dependent on their families in economic and social terms, so the court reduces their sentence. The last argument here has a middle position, saying that gender can either have an impact or suggest absolutely nothing.
Let’s get down to the results of my analysis. Here you can see the distribution of male prisoners in 9 categories from the shortest sentence to the longest. Categories “EDS” and “IS” are not included in my analysis because they do not specify the lengths of the sentence. This bar chart gives little information for my research question, it just shows that men rarely get light sentences that are less than 2 years. In addition, many sentences are more than 10 years. For a more clear picture, there is a sense to move to the next slide and look at the numbers about women’s sentences.
Conclusion
The final section here is the discussion of the findings. Coming back to the theory, many of the concepts and assumptions from there are irrelevant. Labeling theory, which says that women being in “inferior” positions will get harsher sentences, and the “evil women hypothesis” are not justified. Women overall are getting lighter sentences than males. In contrast, males are getting much harsher sentences, so this finding is similar to the general logic that males are involved in more dangerous crimes. Lastly, looking from the other angle, sex does not affect middle-term sentences which are also interesting.
Concerning the limitations of this study, it did not discuss the more complex intersection of race, religion, and gender. In a further study, it is a good idea to find a methodology to differentiate many categories like Black women, Hispanic Women, Muslim Women, etc. It will help to verify the outlined theories more coherently.
References
Bernburg, J.G. (2019) ‘Labeling theory’, in Krohn, M.D., Hendrix, N., Hall, G.P. and Lizotte, A.J. (eds.) Handbook on crime and deviance. Cham: Springer, pp. 179-196.
Brennan, K. (2018) ‘Murderous mothers & gentle judges: paternalism, patriarchy, and infanticide’, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, 30, pp.139-186.
Holland, M.M. and Prohaska, A. (2021) ‘Gender effects across place: a multilevel investigation of gender, race/ethnicity, and region in sentencing’, Race and Justice, 11(1), pp.91-112.
Malon, K. (2020) Gender differences and sentencing: a critical literature review. Doctoral thesis. The University of Hull.
Ministry of Justice (2019) Offender management statistics quarterly. England and Wales. Web.
Shaw, C.D., Vaughan, T.J. and Vandiver, D.M. (2020) ‘Reported sexual-offense incidents in the United States: arrest disparities between women and men’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, pp. 1-26.
Steffensmeier, D., Painter-Davis, N. and Ulmer, J. (2017) ‘Intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, and age on criminal punishment’, Sociological perspectives, 60(4), pp.810-833.