NCJ Number
114325
Date Published
1988
Length
58 pages
Annotation
This paper sketches the preliminary findings of research on the 145 year history of capital punishment of female juvenile offenders.
Abstract
After a hiatus of over three-quarters of a century, such offenders are again on death row, and facing execution. The cases of 10 females executed for juvenile crime and 3 females recently sentenced to death for juvenile crimes are described in considerable detail. Of the 10 females executed, only one was white. In addition to their minority status, they were typically poor, uneducated, borderline retarded, and of the lowest social class in their communities. All of their victims were white and usually socially prominent. Of the 3 females sentenced to death in the current era, one has already had her sentence reduced to life imprisonment, another is on the threshold of legal action, and the remaining girl stands little chance of ever being executed. This almost total refusal to apply the death penalty to female juvenile offenders is in striking contrast to the application of the death penalty in general and its application to adult females and juvenile males: there have been less than 50 death sentences imposed on adult females and approximately 100 on juvenile males. Of these two groups, only one adult female and only three juvenile males have been executed. 118 footnotes (Author abstract modified)