October 31: Policing

Police culture and masculinity:

- Dirty Harry: detective in film from 1971, when this film was released it spiked the sales in the weapon
that harry used in the movies
- He is very cynical about the legal system, which is something that is usually said about police culture
- He does not play by the books or follow procedure, he sees rules as getting in the way
- There is a cult of masculinity that is a very large part of police culture
- Peter Waddington: detective that left policing to study and write about it because he believes that
sociologists and criminologists are wrong in the way they talk about police officers
o Police culture and the cult of masculinity cuts across race, ethnicity, gender
o Policing is much more masculine in the US than in Canada
o The numbers of female police officers is much higher in Canada than in the US
o Male officers will tell you that they prefer to be partnered with a woman because women bring
a certain finesse to a situation, they are good at communication and negotiation
o Gender and ethnicity still play a role in the Canadian police service even though all of their
websites and info claim to be gender blind
o Sexual harassment in law enforcement has decreased overtime, however it is still a problem
o Law suit filed by all female employees of the RCMP dating back to 1974 (when the first female
recruits were sworn in) eligible for compensation if can establish harassment only settled this
may 2017
o Once this law suit was filed the Canadian government set aside 100 million dollars knowing
that this would be a big law suit
o Gay male officers have also experienced similar harassment

Shelly: a nice, theoretical framework

10-7 for Life

- Police are expected to be so much more than law officers, but also teachers, social workers, etc,
resigned for her job, thought itd be her life long career
- Whole family line filled with officers
- Core esteem
- Situational esteem
o After they became cops gained a lot more confidence and self-esteem
- Told policing comes before family
- Come into the job with idea that you will change the world, but soon you realize you cant change
people - She got tired of dealing with people and their problems
o Before used to hear their stories and think oh what a poor person and now she thinks yeah
right
o As a young officer wanted to take all sides, but realized now thats not possible, need to be in
the middle and mediate the situation
o Perception about life and humans change the longer youre on the task force, see a lot of bad
things
o Try to forget, but can only cope, Hard to balance life, Thats why police hang out with police
- Dont feel like shes making a difference anymore
- Things are very different than when she first started, One person cannot make a difference anymore
and thats why shes leaving
 - Police community becomes isolated, deals with that 10% of the society which does not reflect the
whole community
- How much can an individual handle
o Some handle stress of murders, dead bodies, racial problems other cannot
- There is really no test to be able to fully determine that, even with the psychological test today
- Case dealing with a man who thought there was a woman in his house
o Police checked the entire house but couldnt find anyone
o Laughed at the situation afterwards
- is the good winning? Sees so much crime, and evil persists, Unable to be normal when you come
home
- Funeral of a police officer
o He was young, still giving 150% to job because they thought he could make a difference and he
was shot in the head
- Lots of pressure from groups, departments the world
- Waiting that extra 2 or 3 seconds to see if youre making the right decision, and then end up dead
- Bob thought there was an officer down in his house
o Under the mental health act, arrested him to take him to a medical facility which keeps him
until they fell hes physically sound enough to leave
- Cant walk away from the job
- Off for a week or even 5 years and then they reapply
- Cant get the job out of their system
- Follow up at bobs house
o He was a lot better
o More stable
o Officer thinks hell probably going back to his drinking habits
- Ended her last patrol with dispatch call 10-7 for life

Jesse Wozniak and Chris Uggen. 2009. Real men use non-lethals: Appeals to masculinity in marketing
police weaponry. Feminist Criminology. 4 (3): 275-293.
- Article examines: how manufacturers are employing ideals of masculinity as both physical dominance
and technical expertise in marketing these weapons to police officials
- marketing appeals are adapted to suit a hyper-masculine police subculture
- Connells theory of masculinities is employed to understand how such a tightly defined subculture
absorbs challenges to its core values, and how it reimagines itself to keep its core values intact
- the challenge is that StunCos stunners must be marketed as both violent and safe
o how does it do this? researchers looked at marketing tools and a conference
o idealized images
highlighted masculine appeal of the stunner
men are warriors
use of external hegemony
o force
nonlethal but a lot of force
symbolic as well
o heroes and villains
good cops good warriors good men
 empathizing with police issues
o evidence and parables
- policing is a very gendered institution, ideals are trained into them from the first interaction they have
with other police, police have police friends reinforces this
- Officers make a strong distinction between the masculinized warriors on the street and the station
queens in the offices, with the latter label used to feminize officers who are perceived to lack the
toughness required for street patrol
- hegemonic masculinity (just as the other hegemonic ideologies of specific eras) has changed and shifted
to fit the pre- vailing mood.
- civil society has moved toward greater racial, gender, and sexual equality, dramatically changing the
world in which the police operate.
- processes of professionalization and militarization developed simultaneously in the police force
- presenters tried to blur the line between police and salespeople
- my own critique: I think we should open this up more to not just hegemonic masculinity being fluid,
but that the types of masculinities that are being emphasized are different now that theres
bureaucratic pressure to not be shitty shift towards the police being Protectors of the public, etc etc

Tara Shelley, Melissa Morabito, and Jennifer Tobin-Gurley. 2011. Gendered institutions and gender
roles: understanding the experiences of women in policing. Criminal Justice Studies. 24 (4): 351-367.
- Men are disproportionately represented in many institutions including law, politics, the academy, and
the economy
- utilizes Ackers theory of gendered institutions to provide a historical review of womens experiences
in law enforcement
- women have made great strides except in the public safety sector police departments have difficulty
in hiring, retaining, and promoting police officers
- leaking pipeline analogy
o employment trends and existing academic research suggest the presence of institutional
barriers that negatively affect women in policing
o existing research lacks theoretical framework
- Ackers theory of gendered institution: 4 gender processes that maintain opposition to women working
in male dominated professions
o 1 construction of images, symbols, and ideologies in male-dominated occupations legitimize
hegemonic masculinity
Police organizations and male officers have long drawn on masculine images/ symbols
to define what it means to be a cop and to resist the inclusion of women into the force
real police work crime fighting
police work is actually more focused on sedentary work, paper work, social
service
station queens or hard chargers
research indicates that some male officers use offensive humor (often in the form of sex
jokes), sexual stereotypes, harassment,
Morash and Haarr (1995) posited that this type of work environment signals to women
that the department is not their place, but rather an area controlled by male officers
who are antagonistic and have no desire to change their behavior
African-American women who are doubly isolated and discriminated against
cult of masculinity also denies women who stand up to this
o 2 deliberate decision-making and practices are used to control and segregate women
 hierarchal, military-based command structure with institutionalized patterns of control
and subordination between command staff and line level employees
women face difficulties that their male peers do not namely they must
navigate the overt and increasing covert forms of control and segregation that
are legitimized through the military- based management style of many police
agencies while also traversing the socially constructed gender hierarchy typified
by White male dominance
individual
sexual harassment
Negative behaviors exhibited by male officers and superiors include remarks on
sexual orientation, derogatory name-calling, putdowns, affectionate terms of
address, and hostility and degradation
male officers to create a hostile and sexualized work environment to send a
message that women do not belong in policing
It has also been suggested that women pose a threat to this male-oriented occu-
pational solidarity, which is based on common interests, attitudes, values, back-
grounds, and a shared definition of what it means to be masculine
women perceived as unable to do the job bc they are women
organization
the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis- sion, and
Affirmative Action policies that in effect legally imposed the entry of women into
policing
the belief that lower standards are set for female cops is a point of tension for
males
who is in and who is out is entrenched fro training
female officers more often relegated to paperwork
hard for female officers to gain requisite experience to move up
women in managerial positions did not receive the same mentoring as their male
peers, which ultimately hindered their advance- ment in police organizations
gendered institutions are organized to be that reproduction occurs elsewhere
for female officers who choose to have a family they are then further
segregated not afforded the same opportunities that a man would have for
getting injured on the job
community
research in this area indicates that the community treatment of female officers
and the perception of their abilities are positive
policewomen are just as effective
o 3 processes of interaction or doing gender & 4 the construction of gendered personas
based on the creation of differences within the institutional setting
Doing gender is a process relevant in every social inter- action whereby individuals are
held gender accountable and clearly associate with either male or female behaviors
women are expected by society to be nicer than natural while men are expected to be
nastier than natural
unexpressive women on the field are seen as mean while males are seen as professional
women expected to tend to others
coping mechanisms for this xtra emotional stress:
denying themselves relationships = making selves inconspicuous
adhering to masculine traits
coping mechs affect their performance
Statistics Canada. 2011. Women in Canada: A Gender-Based Statistical Report. Pp. 39, 40. Ottawa:
Statistics Canada.-->There are more women but they dont hold high positions

Supplementary reading:
Susan L. Miller, Kay B. Forest, and Nancy Jurik. 2003. Diversity in blue: Gay and lesbian police officers in a
masculinist organization. Men and Masculinities. 5 (4): 355-385.

(1) how heterosexual, masculine police organizations inform their experiences; (2) how officers construct mul- tiple
identities of sexual orientation, gender, and race-ethnicity; and (3) what strategies officers utilize to manage their
homosexual orientation in the workplace. The authors are interested in how multiple identities involving race-ethnicity,
gender, and out versus closeted status shape officers strategies for surviving in a potentially hostile work
environment. The findings suggest that these officers support a more humane approach to policing and see themselves as
particularly qualified to work within marginal communities. Despite the structural barriers of homophobia and sexism
that tempered these officers full acceptance and access to the police subculture, lesbian and gay officers struggled to balance
job demands with their sexual orientation, gender, race-ethnicity, and other dimensions of their identities.

November 14: Criminal Justice Responses to Crime

- Chivalry + opposing (doubly punished) = evil woman
- sex differences differ based on time period Curry reading lacks this

Sex Differences in Criminal Justice Responses in Canada: Examining the Historical Record
1) In the 17th and 18th century
- Century English colonies that eventually became Canada, there appears to have been very little
disparity in the way that criminal punishments were meted out.
- Just as likely to receive corporal punishment (whipped, branded, placed in the stocks, etc.)
- Both women and men were regularly executed.
- Why were there so few sex differences in the 17th and 18th C?
o Pre-industrialization- a time of great toil - ppl often engaged in menial labour- the absence of
technology meant everyone had to work in order to support the family- women couldn't afford
to not work- both m and w were expected to provide
o more along class lines
- W hadn't become "precious" yet, at least in the working classes
- W and m were treated relatively equally- by mid-19th C, this would change quite substantially
2) 19th century Canada
- The industrial revolution created an abundance of material goods, a burgeoning middle class, and an
improved quality of life- so families no longer needed all members to contribute in order to survive
- The emergence of a middle class also ushered in:
o separate spheres for m and women- for the first time we see a real distinction btw the public
and private spheres- w spent more time in the home and men outside
o a more gendered division of labour naturally followed- w become responsible for the home and
its inhabitants (kids, husband)
- new versions of ideal (or normative) masculinity and femininity emerged with these shifts in
responsibilities
o mind rather than brawn
o A new normative femininity also emerged-Feminine, domesticated, compliant,- now became
generalized norms of femininity and applied to working class women as well, rather than being
limited to the upper class women
- Criminal responses start to reflect theses gender shifts
- We observe few significant sex differences between men and women when it comes to serious crimes,
but do start to observe lenience towards females in mostly non-capital crimes.
 o Eg. Clara Ford cases- she obviously was guilty but wasn't treated as harshly
- Less serious crimes: more evidence of sex differences and leniency towards certain types of women.
- The vast majority of women who were arrested at all were arrested for much less serious offences
- The less serious the offence, the more difference in Criminal Justice responses
- They were dealt with in Magistrate Court- the lowest level of court- judges of the MajCourt had no
real formal legal training- cases were dealt with very informally and with very little attention paid to
legal factors- bc of this preforming gender appropriately could have a lot of influence on case
outcomes
o sometimes contingent on if women perform in stereotypical ways
- Lesser offences for men also (drunkenness, vagrancy, disorderly conduct, etc.)
o It was normal for working class men to occasionally get drunk and cause a ruckus on the street,
so it was dealt with more leniently
o If a woman did the same thing she'd be treated much more harshly bc they went against the
ideal of a woman (chaste, pious, demure, respectful, etc.)- instead seen as deviant, promiscuous,
etc and treated more harshly than men.

Summary of Historical Evidence on Sex Differences in Criminal Justice Responses

- The most consistent evidence is of lenience toward women
- However this varied over time, and depended on the type of woman (e.g. race/ethnicity, class, age) and
the type of crime (serious and violent crimes vs. public order offences)
- We may also conclude that women, and in particular girls, were sometimes treated more harshly than
or similar to men- all depends on timeframe, type of offence and attributes of the woman in question

Looking at late 20th century Sex Differences in Criminal Justice Processing

- Pre-Trial: most evidence of sex differences (less open to scrutiny and more informal, less easy to
measure)
o The strongest evidence for sex differences is in the ordering of psychiatric assessments
o Women were far more likely to have a psychiatric assessment ordered and were also far more
likely to be declared mentally unstable/unfit
o Perceived to be damaged and more troubled than the men who make it to the end of the CJS-
seen as more likely to have mental health problems that would explain their criminality
- Trial Outcomes: least evidence of sex differences (far less room for subjectivity- if you're guilty, you're
guilty based on facts/witnesses- strong basis in actual legal factors)
- Conviction
- Length of sentence (strongest sex differences within the trial phase is seen in terms of sentencing)
o W are less likely than men to be imprisoned, and if they are, they receive shorter sentences
o Even when controlling all other variables, (severity of offence, prior record of offender) this still
held true)

Reasons for sex differences in criminal justice responses in the late 20th century
- Focal concerns + chivalry (see Curry reading)
- Practical constraints, especially having children, appear to influence decision-making
o i.e. those who appropriately performed gender and conformed to gender role expectations
regarding familial obligation may receive more lenient treatment at sentencing (particularly
women).
o Known as the "family discount"
- Caveat is female drug users
- Having dependent children affects male sole caretakers as well
- All of this suggests that cultural assumptions/stereotypes may influence how the CJS might deal with
offenders
How Does Gender Shape Criminal Trials? The Example of Clara Ford
- In Clara Fords case, the courtroom served as the stage for a drama in which gender was used as a
means of creating sympathy for the accused, or animosity for the accused
- Eg. Interpersonal violence or sexual assault cases- victim may have their gender placed on trial-
gender becomes operationalized- eg. What was she wearing, why was she out so late, was she planning
on sleeping with him before the alleged attack, etc.
- Not only by sex and gender of the accused, but also sex and gender of decision-makers in the case.
- Clara Ford: seamstress in her early 30s- unmarried, mixed race- has sketchy friends, liked to
occasionally dress in men's clothing
- She shoots and kills a very wealthy young man- walks up to his house, knocks on the door and shoots
him when he answers it
- Victim gave a description of a very small man- police zero in on CF- she first denies it, then admits it
but claimed that he had raped her earlier that year- not much doubt that she is guilty, but she's found
not guilty
- How does she get off? She is very non-conformist, not policing gender roles, not married, etc.
o Described as violent tempered, wild girl- constantly constructed as belonging to a lesser, less
similar race- appealing to idea of the exotic
o She's getting a benefit bc she's not being judged by the same standards of as a white person-
her actions aren't really that unusual for someone with african blood- she's portrayed as a
victim of her class and race- she's just a dumb girl
o Her case was heard by an all white, all male jury
o The fact that she was a women helped her- the jury talked about her as if she was some sort of
defenseless women who was bluffed and tricked by smart police detectives
o The case had less to do with femininity and CF but everything to do with masculinity- relied
on an appeal to male honour - men of honour had to protect women, even odd, foreign women
o So was a loss for women overall- promotes certain facts about women being inferior, lesser
than men, needing men to protect them
o Also note that these periodic compassionate judgements served to dramatize the power of the
law to address inequalities that existed outside the courtroom. These types of judgements
helped promote the idea that even the lowest citizens women, the poor, and people of colour
were equal before the law

Required reading:

Theodore Curry. 2014. The benefits and penalties of gender in criminal justice processing outcomes.
Pp. 551 571 in R. Gartner and B. McCarthy (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Gender, Sex and Crime.
New York: Oxford University Press.
three main conclusions
1) the benefits of gender that accrue to female offenders are general, appearing for juveniles and adults,
across a variety of offenses and decision-making points, independent of race or ethnicity, and even
internationally
2) the gender penalty paid by male offenders is greatest for young black and Hispanic men.
3) outcomes are harsher when crime victims are female, especially white female, and when offenders are
also male

Theories of Gender and Criminal Justice Processing Among Adults

- Chivalry, paternalism, subtypes
o criminal justice agents, who tend to be male, employ their discretion in a manner that, in their
minds, protects women or otherwise minimizes harms they might experience
o women are passive, submissive, in need of protection, emotional, erratic
o white women were more likely to be selected for lenient treatment than nonwhite women
 o the evil woman can remove the protection from more deserving good women
racialized?
o how does increased prevalence of female criminal justice agents affect this?
- Theories of managing uncertainty
o decision makers never have full and completely accurate information on any case or suspect, a
fully rational decision is not possible. Instead, their rationality is bounded and requires
decision making in situations that have varying degrees of uncertainty.
o focal concerns theories contends that decision makers use three specific attributions to manage
uncertainty
1 -- blameworthiness
2 -- community protections
3 -- practical constraints and considerations
focal concerns theory predicts that criminal justice personnel will be less likely to view
females as culpable for their crimes, a threat to the community, or likely reoffenders
Females may be perceived as less able to do time in prison or jail than males,
especially if they have children
- Integrating theories of social organization and uncertainty management
o stereotypical views of gender roles, such as those posited by chivalry theory, are implicit in
uncertainty management theories. In other words, uncertainty management theories take the
existence of specific focal concerns about women as given, rather than endeavoring to explain
where they came from or why they exist in the first place.
- Flip side of gender: greater punitiveness towards young black and Hispanic men
o the gender penalty
o media probably played a role in this representations week link
o focal concerns explains this too

Research findings for gender & arrest decisions among adults

- Visher (1983) conducted one of the first studies of the effects of sex and gender on police decisions to
arrest using observational data on citizenpolice encounters in 1977 in three metropolitan areas of the
United States.
o notably includes people who werent arrested
o police did not favor females over males
o women who were white and older were less likely to be arrested
- adult women less likely to be arrested than adult men, but this is dependent on the type of crime
(women arrested lower than men at different rates for different crimes)
- Visher (1983) conducted one of the first studies of the effects of sex and gender on police decisions to
arrest using observational data on citizenpolice encounters in 1977 in three metropolitan areas of the
United States.
- the circumstances of the crime affect whether and how gender matters
o presence of visible injuries to victims is important
o male suspects are less likely to be arrested when female victims have been using drugs or
alcohol
o women who violate gender norms by causing harm to others are not given gender benefit
- stops of male drivers were consistently more likely to result in arrest than were stops of female
drivers; this gender difference, however, could reflect greater involvement by males in crime rather
than lenience toward female drivers

Research on gender and courtroom processing among adults

- bail decisions favored women, whereas race, ethnicity, and social class variables had no influence.
 - Women are at an advantage in terms of court outcomes, according to most studies

Findings for Gender and Sentencing Outcomes Among Adults

- women are less likely to receive prison sentences than men and to a somewhat lesser extent, receive
shorter sentences if they are sent to prison
- offenders convicted of violence against women receive harsher sentences than those who victimize men
- Family roles and responsibilities may mediate the relationship between gender and sentencing
outcomes, through a process referred to as familial paternalism
o women who are primary caregivers receive shorter sentences

Theories of Gender and CJ Processing Amongst Juveniles

- girls are more likely to be arrested than boys for status offenses, such as running away or curfew
- female-typed offenses (e.g., shoplifting, prostitution, and status violations) girlsparticularly those
who were black or poorwere more likely than boys to be arrested, suggesting that paternalism
affected these decisions.
- research on gender and juvenile justice processing
o Juvenile justice processing encompasses a variety of decision-making points, including intake
screening, pretrial detention, court referrals, and adjudication
o 1990s: girls received milder processing outcomes than boys, save for status offenses where girls
were subject to harsher treatment, consistent with the paternalism perspective
o 1980s: more mixed results - may reflect the implementation of the national Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974
o girls were more likely than boys to have their cases referred to court for formal processing;
however, they find no gender differences at the adjudication stage.
o general delinquency results vary no difference, or a little diff, or major diff
- Findings on Gender and Juvenile Court Dispositions
o A paternalism argument suggests that girls will tend to receive harsher processing outcomes
than boys for status offenses as a way to control their moral and sexual behavior before they
become more extensively involved in delinquency.
o limited and inconclusive

International Research
- lack of research
- Interestingly, Bond and Jeffries (2010) find that Indigenous women received milder sentences than
non-Indigenous women in Australia, which contradicts the prediction of selective chivalry.
- Holland milder sentences for women but no conditional relationship between gender and race
- seems to confirm US research

Future Directions
- gender represents a potent force that can have dramatic effects on the treatment individuals receive
from criminal justice agents
- further research is needed to fill some important gaps in our knowledge about the mechanisms
responsible for gender differences in criminal justice processing. For example, findings are quite mixed
regarding the extent to which being familied accounts for gender benefits accrued to wome

Supplementary reading:
Elizabeth Comack. 2004. Excerpts from The gendering and racializing of criminalized others. In C. Sumner
(ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Criminology. Malden MA: Blackwell.

November 21: Gender & Imprisonment, Part 1

Ashley Smith Video

Required reading:
Randy Myers and Sara Wakefield. 2014. Sex, gender and imprisonment: Rates, reforms, and lived
realities. Pp. 572 593 in R. Gartner and B. McCarthy (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Gender, Sex
and Crime. New York: Oxford University Press

- gender influences the pathway into prison, structures the lived realities of the punishment experience,
and shapes the consequences of a prison stay once released
- focuses on gender in the context of the prison boom in the United States and, to a lesser extent,
Europe
- rate of increase in womens imprisonment has been much larger than that of men.
- politics of mass imprisonmenta shift aimed largely at minority malesdrove up the rates of
incarceration for both men and women
- gender structures examined thru rehabilitative programming and prison violence

Introduction
- men are 93% of the prison population
- growth in womens incarceration has outpace that of men
- race and class disparities in the likelihood of imprisonment, genderperhaps more so than even age
is a dominant characteristic predicting entry into the prison and also dramatically shapes the lived
reality of confinement and the consequences of mass incarceration

Gender and Punishment in the Context of the Prison Boom

- focus on US because so many prisoners there
- imprisonment used politically
- incarceration still largely male
- growth in womens imprisonment was especially pronounced during 1980s
o widespread passage of mandatory minimum sentencing laws targeting drug crime
o when analyzed era by era the increase in womens incarceration > mens

Causes and (Un)intended Consequences of the Prison Boom for Male and Female inmates
- explanations of the prison boom highlight the politicization of crime and punishment that began in
response to high crime rates in the 1960s and that are reflected in the higher incarceration rates from
the early 1970s onward
- Early accounts of the cultural precursors of the prison boom highlight politically motivated
characterizations of poor, black, and Hispanic men as criminal, violent, and a threat to the public at
large
- The adoption of rigid sentencing guidelines also helps to explain the narrowing of the gap between the
number of incarcerated men and women
 o prior to sentencing guidelines there was more room for judges to sentence based on their ideas
of femininity
- Putting judicial decision making aside, gender can shape dispositions in more subtle ways. For
example, most female drug sellers occupy subordinate positions within male-dominated drug-dealing
groups or organizations
o little to offer in terms of bargaining
- girls violence apparent in official statistics is not corroborated by the unofficial data
- Though the spike in girls and womens violence may be part social construction, the consequences of
mass incarceration are real and increasingly gendered.
o women have to take over childcare responsibilities when a parent is incarcerated
o The political and cultural forces described above, coupled with a shift to more rigid sentencing
policy, led to an increase in the incarceration rate for both men and women in the post-1970
period. Among adult men, racial disparities in incarceration ballooned, and prisons filled with
less serious offenders who might not have been incarcerated in previous eras.

Pathways to Prison

- Relative to men, jailed women report higher rates of employment problems, histories of abuse,
depression, and suicidal ideation
- The pathway to prison for girls and women often begins with abuse in the home
- Abuse continues as girls who escape sexual and physical abuse at home are labeled runaways and find
their survival strategies criminalized by the state

Gender and the Lived Experience of Prison

- gender is an important organizing principle most prisons are segregated by sex
- Gendered assumptions about the character of female prisonersincluding womens passivity and
willingness to changeand traditional notions of femininity serve as a rationale for protecting
womens prisons from punitive shifts in governance, but they also normalize the deficits in correctional
programming available to incarcerated women
- same-sex environment of mens prisons, gender hierarchies still exist, with hegemonic masculinity, as
on the streets, functioning as the dominant measuring stick for social status
- inmates unable or unwilling to conform to ideals of hegemonic masculinity are particularly vulnerable
to violence
o transgender very vulnerable
o the taken-for-granted nature of male domination gives such hierarchies an apparently natural
and, therefore, legitimate quality

Gender-Specific Policy: Promise, Potential Pitfalls, and New Directions

- Substance abuse, for example, might more often serve a self-medication function for women (Belknap
2001), and the gendered nature of childcare responsibilities means that attaining affordable housing
imposes special costs on women
- men and women may react different to the very same rehabilitative treatment
- Liberal feminist criminologys attention to gender-responsive programming provides models for
helping young women deal with the traumatic events that influence their pathways into crime.
- the use of classification tools originally developed for male prisoners in Canadian female prisons led to,
among other consequences, the overclassification of Aboriginal women into high-risk categories
that jeopardized their eligibility for parole, programming, and furlough
- limits and unintended consequences of gender-specific programming and policies
 o the implementation of gender-specific programming might legitimate the incarceration of
socially marginal women on the grounds that the prison is a place where their needs can be
met
o Numerous empirical accounts question whether gender-responsive programs empowering
and liberating aspects might be more usefully characterized as instances of
responsibilization
o Critics maintain that gender-specific policies are often in the form of individual-level
interventions that leave unaddressed, and often obscure, the very real legal and social barriers
that bound participants choices
o another avenue for combatting gendered violence is to work directly with socially excluded
malesincluding those in the justice system for committing acts of violence against women
o In the era of mass incarceration, many of the young men most vulnerable to the collision of
hegemonic masculinity and economic and social exclusion cycle through the justice system
- material disadvantages facing men and women in the prison system.
o stable work and decent housing are necessary ingredients for system-involved persons looking
to go straight

Conclusion
- programming restrained by budgets
- gender neutral policies have gendered consequences

Shoshana Pollack. 2009. You cant have it both ways: Punishment and treatment of imprisoned women.
Journal of Progressive Human Services. 20 (2): 112-128.

- qualitative study with 68 formerly incarcerated women in Canada which examined their experiences of
imprisonment and release to the community
- Canada seen as on the forefront with this: cottage-style living units (rather than the old-style bars and
cells)
- appropriation of feminist- and Aboriginal- informed healing discourses have been transformed into
gendered strategies for governing imprisoned women
- disjuncture between women-centered correctional policy rhetoric and the lived experience of
incarceration.
- prisoners are used predominantly in femi- nized jobs, such as hairdressing, cooking, and cleaning the
prison.

Imprisoning women in neo-liberal context

- Neoliberalism, as an ideology and a set of socioeconomic policies, has led to a shift in how the North
American welfare state functions and governs.
- The dismantling of social services and welfare state provisions in tandem with a political appetite for
incarceration have resulted in the increased criminalization of the most marginalized and vulnerable
members of our communities
o privatization of prisons
o lack of programming
o streamlining process
o CCTV
- Despite decreasing crime rates, the rate of women being sentenced to federal prisons in Canada is
steadily increasing
 - prison now functions as a repository for the mentally ill, drug addicts, and poor, sick people for whom
the depleted social services no longer provide adequate accommo- dation
- A key feature of this network is that punitive models of correction collide with therapeutic frameworks,
thereby integrat- ing discourses of empowerment and treatment with practices of punishment and
control. This is especially salient with regard to imprisoned women who are most often considered
unstable, dependent, and un-empowered
- fastest growing group of incarcerated women is Aboriginal

Understanding the present: the imprisoning of Women in Canada

- P4W 7 suicides, 6 aboriginal
o The task force that conducted the inquiry made significant recommendations that were to
change the philosophy, geography, and programming of federally sentenced women. As a result
of this report, between 1995 and 1997 the Correctional Service of Canada opened five regional
prisons for women
o new prisons be based on what they termed women-centered principles, such as empowerment
and respect, and that they be responsive to the cultural needs of Aboriginal women
o didnt recognize that prison environment actively contradicts support and empowerment, so
while the correctional system endorses empowerment policy rhetoric, few real changes resulted
rhetoric also eclipses the real things

Methodology

Prisons as treatment centers?

- prison represented the possibility of receiving help for their addictions
- women are increasingly being criminalized is one of poverty, racism, addiction, lack of community
supports, and violence against women
- 66/68 had substance abuse issues, had issues accessing help
- many women intended to deal with their addictions while incarcerated
- In fact, the promise of obtaining treatment in federal prisons has led some women facing shorter
sentences in provincial jails to request federal prison time
o takes them away for longer from community, family, labor market

Programming and punishment

- Womens comments about their experiences of imprisonment under the women-centered regime
across the country reflected an engagement with the contradictory discourses about prisons as being
both empowering and punishing
- disap- pointment and disillusionment experienced when it was found that prisons provide relatively
little support and are not safe places for healing.
- The women-centered rhetoric also leads women to expect that they will be treated by correctional staff
in supportive and respectful ways.
- Participants who had been incarcerated at the Aboriginal Healing Lodge found the ethos and climate
of this prison to be significantly less hos- tile than the non-Aboriginal prisons
o emphasized holistic approaches to life and healing and focused on building connections between
staff and prisoners
o but even here punitive environment pervaded
o if you do not participate daily in your healing program you can be charged, which means
being punished or being denied access to certain rights and privileges.
heal on their terms also happened in federal prisons
 - very positive assessments of small sexual abuse counseling program high- lights the significance of
these issues for imprisoned women
- the sexual abuse counseling program was viewed in very positive terms, and respon- dents felt this
type of therapy significantly affected how they cope with, and understand, many of their past and
current experiences.
o 1 hired from the outside (more honest with her)
o 2 voluntary participation
o 3 counselors approach was very good respect, confidentiality, support
sexual abuse counselors allowed the women to see their files
significant bc what people write about them holds a lot of authority
- Women stated that although the therapy was quite time- limited, they gained insight into their
feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. These insights helped them to deal better with self-blame,
addictions, and self-harm, allowing them to respond in new ways.
- arranged this therapy for themselves once out as well

A program is great, but a program doesnt get you a job in society: gender and employment
- emphasis on womens psychologytheir thoughts and attitudeseclipsed the relevance of social
exclusion, such as lack of access to jobs, education, and training opportunities
- The work opportunities given to women in prison are cooking, clean- ing and maintaining the prison,
and hairdressing, all gender-stereotyped jobs that are unlikely to assist them in entering the labor
market
o these types of job experiences at best relegate women to feminized and racialized low-wage
employment or, at worst, are skills that are not marketable in the community
- CORCAN was predominantly a support for male rather than female prisoners. River said that this
therefore gave some security for the man...where theres nothing for women
o lots of women wanted security
- barriers to getting a job with a criminal record extra stereotyped?

Discussion
- Given the high profile of the Canadian womens federal prison system and its reputation for being
therapeutic and supportive, women in this study had expected to receive treatment for addictions and
related issues.
- expense of job-skills development and opportunities is consistent with neoliberal regulatory strategies
that emphasize individualism, personal choice, and self-sufficiency and ignore the relationship between
socioeconomic exclusion and criminalization
- womens experiences are different from mens this needs to be a consideration

The Canadian Press. 2012. Aboriginal women imprisoned in soaring numbers. Sept. 27.
- The Conservative government's "tough on crime agenda" will only send the numbers spiralling
higher, adds the report, which paints a bleak picture of native, Inuit and Mtis women's experience
with the federal correctional system
- root causes: colonization, present day challenges, exploitation, violence, racism
o overclassified as high risk
o alternative means of assessment required
- healing lodges in planning stages
 o government's agenda of stiffer sentences and harsher measures for prisoners "will only serve to
further increase the numbers [of imprisoned aboriginal women] and worsen the already
staggering injustice experienced by aboriginal peoples as a whole

Canadian Human Rights Commission. 2003. Excerpts from Protecting Their Rights: A Systemic Review of
Human Rights in Correctional Services for Federally Sentenced Women. Ottawa: PW & GS of Canada. (Text
has been repaginated to 1 - 12.)

Supplementary reading:
For further information on the events at P4W (as covered in the CBC documentary), see the following:

Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston. 1996

Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston (The Arbour Inquiry).
Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services of Canada, pp. 65 - 77.

Hannah-Moffat. 2004. Gendering risk at what cost: Negotiations of gender and risk in Canadian womens
prisons. Feminism and Psychology. 14(2): 243-249

Fair, Helen. 2009. International review of womens prisons. Prison Service Journal. 184: 3-8.

November 28: Gender & Imprisonment, Part 2

Cruel and Unusual

Required reading:
Tony Evans and Patti Wallace. 2008. A prison within a prison? Masculinity narratives of male prisoners.
Men and Masculinities. 10 (4): 484-507.

Walker, M. 2016. Race making in a penal institution. American Journal of Sociology. 121(4): 1051-1078.

Nancy Levit. 2001. Male prisoners: Privacy, suffering, and the legal construction of masculinity. In D. Sabo
et al. (eds.), Prison Masculinities. Philadelphia: Temple U Press.

Weatherall v. Canada (Attorney General), [1993] 2 S.C.R. 872

Supplementary reading:
Correctional Service of Canada. 2008. Policy on Gender Identity Disorder. Commissioners Directive # 800.
Issued July 11, 2008.

Yvonne Jewkes. 2005. Men behind bars: Doing masculinity as an adaptation to imprisonment. Men and
Masculinities. 8 (1): 44 - 63.

Rebecca Trammell. 2011. Symbolic violence and prison wives: Gender roles and protective pairing in mens
prisons. The Prison Journal. 91 (3): 305-324.

December 5: Representations of Gender, Sex, and Crime

1) women less presented (men are more important)
 - 3x more frequently in TV
- men are typically portrayed as active, adventurous, powerful, sexually aggressive
- women are sex objects young, thin, beautiful, passive, dependent
- Wonder Woman, Hunger Games exception and not the norm

2) men and women stereotypical representations

- mech: representations work through use of repeated

- the more we see = the more normal = the more reality
- representations are generalizations about categories and why events, ideas, or people belong in them
- thinking processes, representations contain a POV

- depiction of crime:
o more brutal, violent
o more like to be at people than property
o simple theft accounted for nearly 2/3 of actual police work, 6% of television police work
o 1/3 of TV crime is murder
o Crime in the US 2013 men are 3x more likely than women to be murdered largest number of
male victims are African America
o Zap2it: men twice as likely as women to be victims of crime,
o victims 30s to 40s most
- violence towards women = more sympathy, higher ratings
o more dispensable
- women are #1 consumers of shows about murdered women
o generalizations are problematic
- only exposed to crime thru TV shows
- women are more infrequently portrayed as violent perpetrators as compared with men
- researchers have found that one in 10 violent perpetrators on TV are women
- no distortion with respect of low frequency of women as killers, major distortion nevertheless in terms
of overall representation
- rationality attributed to men, needed to depend on men

Herbert Spencer: Principle of Conservation of Life Energy

- men and women have finite level
- womens energy was generated from her womb, women used up their energy very quickly
- best thing for women was to life of reduced activity

Darwin: Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

- men by nature have gained presidency over women in terms of intellectual as well as physical
evolution
- through competition and sexual and natural selection, men have developed their intellectual skills,
higher mental faculties
- women do not have capacity to learn or not be emotional

Morrissey questions why people are so reluctant to believe that women can intend to kill
- examines construction are female killers are constructed in the media
- represented as victims rather than as agentic actors in their violent crimes
- denying possibility of full agency in violent crimes, women are being denied full freedom to be human

Lloyd:
- violent women are off center
- psychiatric institutions more prevalent as a solution for women
Chesney-Lind and Eliason
- media and popular constructions of female crime serve to demonize marginalized women (women and
girls of color, lesbian women)
- construct these as masculine and violent
- increase imprisonment for WoC and lesbian women
- cautionary tale that if they raise any challenge to sex gender system, risk arrest and incarceration
- doubly deviant, doubly damned
o not only committed a crime, but transgressed traditional cultural notions of appropriate
femininity
o women who dont harsher treatment, judged according to hegemonic views

Doubly Deviant Elaine Rose Cece and Mary Barbara Taylor

- lesbian lovers
- broad backed, overweight, and waist-less
- indigenous
- victim was handsome young Toronto police officer whose tiny widow was but a month away from
delivering the couples second child when he was cruelly slain
o 12k people attended funeral
- part of a transgressive womans punishment, where it was in evidence, femininity was dissected and
scrutinized by the press
- violence and aggression = associated with masculinity
o Karla Homolka what makes them so newsworthy that they have behaved in ways that are
unfeminine

Mia Consalvo
- discusses extensive news coverage immediately following Columbine High School shootings
- gender important for both
- teen killers constructed media ignored hegemonic masc and school culture, emphasized bullying
- harassing non conforming youth across America who behave in ways deemed dangerous

Normative Masculinity
1) workplace success
2) breadwinner
3) heterosexual
4) physical power
5) outdoorsmen

Dont get conned by superbowl 2010 ad

Required reading:
Mia Consalvo. 2003. The monsters next door: Media constructions of boys and masculinity. Feminist Media
Studies. 3 (1): 27-45.
- school violence in the US accounts for only a small fraction of violence involving children nationwide
(John Cloud 1999), the unusual, recurring character of these crimes has focused attention to them out
of proportion to their actual number
- women tend to be displayed as victims of male violence
- media coverage is important: crime news = normalizing force in society, news about black males
committing crime emphasis on their race, important for news coverage to properly reflect crime
- young boys represented also important show how gender is performed, engrained
 - media reporting selective details of their past let school culture and hegemonic masculinity off the
hook
- study aims to look at the overall picture, not the differences

Sex/gender distinction
- media performs/reinforces masculine-male, feminine-female
- many masculinities seen in ads, male friendships on TV, men in advertising and sports
o hierarchy
o real manhood only possible for a distinct minority
leads to men feeling powerless even if they hold power over a lot
- subordinate masculinity gay male subculture still rigid roles
o outcast groups in high school
- conservative masculinity as a place for supposedly progressive articulations of masculinity
- In spite of these differences in constructs, all of these versions of masculinity work in concert to
ultimately retain the dominance of masculinity as a whole, defining and redefining what is masculine in
order to retain its privilege.
- school is a part of the socialization of masculinity
- violence or the threat of violence can figure into multiple constructions of masculinity in different ways
- violence is a masculine trait men as a group are more inclined to use violence
- focus on how journalists explained their backgrounds

One horrific crime, two monstrous perps

- lots of coverage
- killers portrayed as inhuman monsters
- deviant beyond understanding
- Klebold and Harris were worse because they look pleasure in killing their classmates
- media casts males who kill or batter victims as sick or deviant and not reflective of society at large
o differentiate good men and bad socipaths
o monsters not gendered
- guilt by association Trench Coat Mafa

The media asks why and finds, in part, The Trench Coat Mafia
- Their history as outcasts emerged and their association with The Trench Coat Mafia was scrutinized.
- trench coat mafia not popular
- linked to other deviant activities nazi
- The Trench Coat Mafia members (who were mostly white males), including Harris and Klebold,
inhabited a subordinated masculinity within the culture of their school. They were not part of the in
crowd, were not popular, and were either ignored or despised by other kids
- News coverage showed that Harris and Klebold had been marginalized and harassed by the school
culture at Columbine High School
- Although as white males they were supposed to be in a privileged position (relative to adult men at the
school), they were instead shown to be at the bottom.
- The problem of bullying in school was made mostly irrelevant by Harris and Klebolds over-the-top
response.
 - Mafia members and geeks at all high schools were instead found to be more blameworthy and
suspicious than their dominant peers.

How could this happen here?

- far easier to suggest that the boys deviancy was to blame for their racism as well.
- whiteness worked in concert with masculinity to produce a subject position expectant of certain
privileges. Denied these privileges, the middle-class white boys lashed out.
- The continued invisibility of whiteness in news analysis paralleled the medias failure to adequately
interrogate masculinity
o focused on the shock that a middle class kid could do that
- One way that race was used in the Columbine shootings was with the link made between Klebold and
Harris and white supremacist beliefs
o beliefs not skin color

Video games and the Internet: the new scapegoats

- Doom first person shooter
- school shooters are commonly influenced by the media?
- violent video games are where kids learn to kill and like it
- I argue that games and the Internet are structured spaces to experiment with and enact alternative
gender rolesroles denied to most people in everyday reality.
- new masculinity thru Doom

Carol Stabile. 2004. Getting what she deserved: The news media, Martha Stewart and masculine
domination. Feminist Media Studies. 4 (3): 315-332.

- People: diva behavior wont cut it

- Having capitalized on the intercourse between private and public spheres central to Stewarts
trademark
- media coverage took a triumphalist tone this article examines news coverage of Stewarts undoing
indictment to beginning of trial
- compared with Kenneth Lay of Enron
o amount of coverage devoted
o tone of language
- As an icon, Martha Stewart is a curious instance (or perhaps effect) of a culture whose deeply
embedded androcentrism inflects other forms of domination
- Rorschach test of womens and mens anxieties about female success
- Stewarts success suggested that women could compete with white bourgeois men
- In distinct contrast to the therapeutic ethos of other powerful women in the culture industry
(particularly Oprah Winfrey), Stewart never exuded warmth or invited emotional confessions.
o not nurturing or feminine
- androcentrism of making masculine domi- nation the kind of structuring structure that endures
beyond massive changes in economic systems, political upheavals, institutional reforms, and even
natural disasters.
- Stewart never conformed to these gendered codes of conduct: she never exhibited the ethic of care
enacted by ODonnell and Winfrey, she had a reputation for being as hard as nails
 - Like women, members of the white working class, and people of color before her who similarly
invested in the very system that discriminated against them, Stewart assumed that she would be one of
the few historical accidents to the rule of white, heteronormative capitalism
o took advantage of a discipline built into social spaces like homes, gardens and kitchens,
involving postures and practices involving bodies
o but away from femininity where she wouldve been shoved into all the negative properties
- News coverage of the Martha Stewart case exposes the deep vein of misogyny that continues to exist
in the US culture industry
- Martha Stewart was charged (and convicted in March 2004) of obstructing justice and lying to
investigators about her sale of ImClone stock, a deal that netted her a reported $51,000. While Stewart
was reported to have supported and contributed to the Demo- cratic Party, she was not a major
campaign contributor, nor did she have intimate ties to major political figures.
o amount of attention was disproportionate
- In contrast to Stewarts meager $51,000, Kenneth Lay, former chairman of Enron, made $20.7 million
during the first seven months of 2001 by exercising stock options
o employees who invested lost 2B, Lay was the single most generous contributor to the
Bush/Cheney campaign in 2000 and was considered a valued friend and advisor to George W.
Bush
- Enron could have easily figured as case study of corporate malfeasance, of the mendacious promotion
of energy deregulation to the US public, of the incestuous ties between corporate interests and
government officials, and of links between Saudi oil and US foreign policy.
- media coverage of Stewart: 1279 vs 23 on Lay
o As difficult as it was to avoid news of Martha Stewart, it was even more difficult to find news
about Kenneth Lay in the business section of newspapers, much less on the front page
- Misogynstic language: Stewarts blurring of the private and public in her media productions and her
professionalized domesticity were consistently used to demonize her
o likened it to prostitution

Martha Stewart Rich Mean Woman

- In American popular culture, rich women have never fared well
- The sexist logic behind the special vituperation reserved for rich women is straightforward: women,
power, and money are a volatile and tragic mix
- behavior that is socially sanctioned among male executives (perfectionism, self-absorption, coolness,
self-confidence) is an indication of full-blown malevolence in women
- Featured as the domestic diva turned Fatal Attraction psycho, Stewart is depicted expressing a form of
controlled behavior that in a woman can only be one step shy of full-blown hysteria.
- Since it is not normal for a woman to maintain her composure in the face of adversity (one of the many
reasons they need the reassuring protection of men), the media remained on the alert for any signs of a
crack in Stewarts emotional armor.

Rich, Mean, Lying

- focus on charges that she had lied to the Federal Bureau of Investiga- tion.
- At their best, women lack directness; while at worst, their hidden genitals speak of a propensity to
conceal and to deceive.

Public is Glad
- The language used to describe Stewarts demise manifests a spiteful gleefulness
 - This blondenfreude was in ample abundance in the following smug statements about what Martha
should expect in prison: She will shower in a communal bathroom, wont be isolated from the scum
of the earth, and Come mealtime, Stewart will face a diet relentlessly high in fat and carbs
- overconfidence
o attributes that in male corporate executives are seen as desirable personality traits are
positively demonized in a woman.
- In the second place, the language used to describe corporate criminals like Kenneth Lay, Dennis
Koslowski, Bernard Ebbers, and others is remarkably devoid of adjectives, as if CEOs were a
completely nondescript category, requiring nothing more than corporate titles and descriptions of
assets.
- In many ways, Stewart was the consummate outsider who despite her best efforts could not help but
betray her outsider status.
o he was a woman who made her way in the masculinist world of millionaires by peddling
commodities to women and gay men
o Stewarts was a strangely revisionist WASP culturea WASP culture in which food and home
mattered in ways indelibly, and ironically, marked by ethnicity and class.
food was never that central to WASP culture
- In stark contrast, male corporate executives like Kenneth Lay, Andrew Fastow, Dennis Koslowski, and
Bernard Ebbers were described only in relation to their employ- ment status.
- In essence, writing about a female corporate offender appears to demand a tabloidesque approach,
while male subjects dictate the reverse.
o Men thus merit factual coverage, while womens persons (their hair, their appearance, their
mien) are open to endless scrutiny and contempt, as well as more verbiage.
- Late-night hosts speculated about Stewarts future style hintshow to brighten up prison bars or
accessorize license plates.
o one finds little in the way of schadenfreude in coverage of Kenneth Lay, Dennis Koslowski, or
Neil Bush before them
o medias joy could not exist without female object
- the focus that journalists put on her was blamed on her: Martha, the media suggested, like all women
in a sexist culture, had somehow asked for itshe had turned herself into a brand, she had sold out
the domestic sphere, she was too confident, too brash, too much

Supplementary reading:

Lisa M. Cuklanz and Sujata Moorti. 2006. Televisions new feminism: Prime time representations of women
and victimization. Critical Studies in Media Communication. 23 (4): 302-321. (The Allen reading previously
assigned is also relevant to this weeks topic.)