NCJ Number
86403
Date Published
1982
Length
55 pages
Annotation
This study replicates sections of an earlier study conducted by Simon and Sharma of the female offender in Washington, D.C., in order to explore strategies to test the original study's hypothesis and to correct apparent methodological deficiencies.
Abstract
Data used in the Simon study consisted of arrest information for Washington, D.C., for 1974 and 1975. This study used data for all females and every 7th male in the 1974 data base whose cases were closed as of 1975. In the present study, 2,467 females and 2,500 males were considered. In the original study it was hypothesized that as a result of the spread of a more sex-equalitarian ideology, women have come to be treated the same as men by the judicial system. The study's findings confirmed this hypothesis to the extent that broad offense categories were shown to have fairly similar distributions within each gender group, and that gender did not emerge as a relevant independent predictor of sentence. These findings cannot be taken as conclusive, however, because the offense categories used were too broad, multiple regression analysis was an inappropriate method to deal with the predictors, and the strategy of process analysis was diluted by dealing with the decision stages in a discontinuous rather than continuous fashion. In contrast, this study reveals evidence of the persistence of traditional patterns of offense distribution by gender as well as differential treatment of female offenses by the judicial system. Data tables and 27 references are included.