This book explores how the Victorians perceived and explained female crime, and how they responded to it - both in penal theory and prison practice. In Victorian England women made up a far larger proportion of those known to be involved in crime than they do today; the nature of female criminality attracted considerable attention and preoccupied those trying to provide for women within the penal system.
Lucia Zedner's rigorously researched study examines the extent to which gender-based ideologies influenced attitudes to female criminality. She charts the shift from the moral analyses dominant in the mid-nineteenth century to the interpretation of criminality as biological or psychological disorder prevalent later. Using a wide variety of sources - including prison regulations, diaries, letters, punishment books, grievances and appeals, Dr Zedner explores both penological theory and the
realities of prison life.
This is a rich and scholarly study, which reveals much about the relationship between responses to female criminality and prevailing social values and concerns.
- ISBN10 0198202644
- ISBN13 9780198202646
- Publish Date 7 November 1991
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Clarendon Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 372
- Language English