Gender disparities in sentencing outcomes for sexual offenders

ABSTRACT

Prevalence rates indicate that female sexual offending is a serious problem in society, but when it comes to sentencing outcomes, females who have sexually offended (FSOs) tend to receive more lenient sentences than males who have sexually offended (MSOs). It is difficult to draw definitive conclusions based on these findings because potential confounding or case-relevant factors have not been well accounted for. We compare sentencing outcomes for ten cases of female sexual offending matched to ten cases of male sexual offending in New Zealand (NZ). We coded the sentencing notes for underlying case-relevant factors and found that although the factors and the way in which they were applied at sentencing were similar for both FSOs and MSOs, FSOs were significantly less likely to receive a prison sentence than were MSOs. We discuss what leniency means for FSOs in terms of impact on victims, community safety, and the rehabilitative processes that are available to reduce recidivism.

KEYWORDS:

• sexual offending
• females who have sexually offended
• sentencing comments
• gender disparities
• sentencing outcomes

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a grant from the James Hume Bequest Fund, administered by the University of Otago Medical School and by a Marsden Grant (15-UOO-061) from the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All cases related to sexual offending are tried in criminal court.

2 2011–2018 was the selected timeframe to ensure that all cases were sentenced post the New Zealand Sentencing Amendment Act 2011 when changes to sentencing came into effect.

3 This criteria was based on Deering and Mellor’s (2009) study where the cases were matched on the age of the victim, the relationship between the offender and the victim, the severity (e.g. incest, penetration), the frequency of the offence, and the era when the offending took place.

4 See Goodman-Delahunty and Sporer (2010) for a review of unconscious influences in sentencing decisions.

5 Although there was a small difference related to Victim factors, the size of the difference is unlikely to explain differences in sentence outcomes but further exploration of this study is needed in subsequent research.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a grant from the James Hume Bequest Fund, administered by the University of Otago Medical School and by a Marsden Grant (15-UOO-061) from the Royal Society of New Zealand.