Photo credit: Stubhill News

An article from SBS, an Australian public television station, has argued that though females only account for 8% of the prison population that's "8 percent too many." The article runs through the differences between equity and equality and tries to claim that only men commit "the most heinous offenses." This is of course not the case. Women are accused of killing innocent persons or sexually abusing those in their charge, the difference is, they rarely get as steep a punishment for the same types of crimes.

In McGill professor Myriam S. Denov's book on female sex perpetration, Female Sex Offending: A Culture of Denial, Denov explains that female sex offenders are often more likely to slip through the cracks:

<blockquote>“While the prevalence rates of female sex offending are small when compared to rates of male sex offending, there is evidence to suggest that sexual abuse by females may be under-recognized."</blockquote>

Dr. Denov also warns of the danger inherent in “a widespread denial of women as potential sexual aggressors that could work to obscure the true dimensions of the problem." In 19% of the cases of sexual assault by an authority figure, the offender in question was female. A 2012 study from the US Census Bureau showed that 43.6% of responders who admitted to forcing sex on another person were female.

So not only are women just as capable of working in tech or being CEOs they're also just as capable of committing horrific violence, sexual abuse and other crimes. The gender gap is actually even greater in the US. <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/11573/gender-of-inmates-in-us-federal-prisons-and-general-population/">Females count for less than 7% of the prison population</a>. According to data from the Department of Justice in 2014, African Americans formed 37% of the prison population.

According to <a href="https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx">a paper from Dr. Sonja Starr</a>, "Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases," even after taking into account similar offenses, males tend to be sentenced to 63% longer. The gender incarceration gap is something like six times as great as the racial disparity.

The situation begins far before prison in many cases:

<blockquote> "Existing studies have typically focused on single stages of the criminal process in isolation"—in particular, the judge's final sentencing decision. These studies compare actual sentencing outcomes after controlling for the recommended sentence associated with the defendant's ultimate conviction. The problem with this, Starr explains, is that "the key control variable is itself the result of a host of discretionary decisions made earlier in the justice process"—including prosecutors' charging and plea-bargaining decisions. Starr's research incorporates disparities found at those earlier stages, and finds that "more disparity is introduced at each phase of the justice process." </blockquote>

In the case of the gender wage gap, many have attacked the premise that women are paid less pointing out that the theory doesn't hold up to multi-variate analysis. In the case of the gender incarceration gap, however, even taking differences into account there's still an undeniable disparity that can't be accounted for. Gender equality would be equal pay for equal work (which is for the most part the case now) but also equal sentences for equal crimes.

Source:

https://archive.is/o0bZ0