This is the first in an ongoing multipart series on the Inequality of Western Justice. Judges openly state that they try to be lenient with women and give them lighter sentences. There are several US studies on this discrimination. As one author put it “If you’re a criminal defendant, it may help—a lot—to be a woman” – so says Professor Sonja Starr. After studying a very large set of US Federal cases she concludes:
“After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, “men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do,” and “women are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted.”
We will write an entire post about gender gap and sexism in sentencing and compare it to some Trinidad examples, when we are finished looking at the data. But it in the meantime – we will comment on current cases where this bias against men is overwhelming.
Loen Morris, the 21 yr old female pedophile of Worcester, UK, started having regular sex with an 8 year old boy until she was 18 (50 times). After which she stopped. “Yesterday a judge said he would be lenient – because she stopped when she realized it was “wrong”. Her two year sentence will most likely o
nly net her 12 months in a low security women’s’ prison. She was laughing and smoking outside the court house after the sentencing. There was also a plea for her not to serve any time for the crime.
It appears that she was fully aware of what she was doing and probably thought that as a young lady she could not be charged, as a minor. This is significant problem with the judiciary – they are not supposed to be biased – but being biased for a politically correct reason is still bias. Judges all over are quick to be lenient with women and treat them as victims. There are several proposals in the British Justice system (which Trinidad and Tobago mirrors) where the thinking is that women cannot naturally be criminals and that they should not be incarcerated. The Women Justice Task-force concluded in 2011 that:
“Women should not be sent to prison and should instead serve community sentences. The focus should be on health, housing and treatment for drug addiction to reduce reoffending”
“Few sensible politicians would support locking up the thousands of women who receive the shortest sentences, at the highest cost to the state and to their families, and make up a tiny proportion of overall crime in this country”.
Men need to realize the injustice of these types of measures where they can be criminalized for anything while women are considered blameless. In family court women can make the wildest accusations. Women can murder children, and society thinks that she is unworthy of prison. Men have to pay the ultimate price for the crimes women are responsible for. We must rally against this. The principles of fairness and justice are being eroded. Today a woman can decide the day after that the sex she agreed to have with you was non-consensual – because you did not get a notarized copy of her agreement for the act – so you are a rapist. More on this topic to come.
References
UK Mirror – Woman jailed for having sex with boy aged eight more than FIFTY times http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/loren-morris-woman-jailed-having-3258099
Michigan Law University of Michigan https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx
Justice Women Task-force – Reforming Women’s Justice – http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Women%27s%20Justice%20Taskforce%20Report.pdf
BBC – Women’s Prisons Should Close – https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-13666066
Men Against Feminism - Trinidad & Tobago 