Women who kill their abusive partners : an analysis of queer theory, social justice and the criminal law

This thesis examines the criminal law's treatment of women who kill their abusive partners through a theoretical framework developed from queer theory and social justice. More specifically, in relation to queer theory, the thesis considers the work ofJudith Butler and her notions of gender as performativity, cultural intelligibility, materialisation and resignification. The model of social justice used is drawn from the work of Iris Marion Young. One particular aspect of her model of social justice is considered to be pertinent: cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism maintains that an injustice in the form of domination and oppression is committed when inferior social groups are constructed from the outside by the dominant social group and where their particular characteristics are rendered 'Other'.The thesis applies the work of these two authors to a number of criminal cases in order to analyse the following issues: the construction of a woman's identity by the legal system; the existence of differences between women - particularly racial, cultural and ethnic differences - and the possibility of achieving justice within the existing criminal law. The thesis scrutinises Court of Appeal judgments and provides a close reading of two cases: Zoora Shah, who remains convicted for murder, and Diana Butler, who was, on retrial, convicted for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.I argue that the murder/manslaughter and custody/probation distinctions are linked to the unintelligible/intelligible gender distinction. I further argue that in those cases in which a manslaughter conviction is achieved, the result can be seen to be both at once just and unjust. Whereas it may be 'legally just' when compared to cases involving men who have killed their partners, it is also 'socially unjust' due to the cultural imperialistic manner in which a woman's identity is constructed. Furthermore, the thesis highlights that, in addition to prevailing gender scripts to which women must conform, there also exists racial regulatory scripts which impact upon the construction of a woman's identity and her perceived cultural intelligibility. Attention is also paid to the instability of meaning which is considered to provide an opportunity for subversive transformation.In the conclusion the thesis forwards an overview of a proposed defence, which is based upon a reformulation of the battered woman syndrome and the defence of duress. This defence is considered to offer a more socially just outcome for womenwho kill

Ethics and Vulnerability in Street Prostitution; An Argument in Favour of Managed Zones

This article draws upon the work of Judith Butler, in particular her approach to ethics and the concepts of vulnerability and 'liveable lives,' in order to provide a critical analysis of reform proposals contained in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (now Act 2008) in relation to street prostitution. The article will argue that the proposals presented in the Bill problematically use the vulnerability of street sex workers in order to promote a moralistic agenda. In contrast it will be argued that managed zones, as proposed by Liverpool City Council, provide a potentially more ethical approach to the issue of street prostitution

Women who kill their abusive partners : an analysis of queer theory, social justice and the criminal law

This thesis examines the criminal law's treatment of women who kill their abusive partners through a theoretical framework developed from queer theory and social justice. More specifically, in relation to queer theory, the thesis considers the work ofJudith Butler and her notions of gender as performativity, cultural intelligibility, materialisation and resignification. The model of social justice used is drawn from the work of Iris Marion Young. One particular aspect of her model of social justice is considered to be pertinent: cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism maintains that an injustice in the form of domination and oppression is committed when inferior social groups are constructed from the outside by the dominant social group and where their particular characteristics are rendered 'Other'.The thesis applies the work of these two authors to a number of criminal cases in order to analyse the following issues: the construction of a woman's identity by the legal system; the existence of differences between women - particularly racial, cultural and ethnic differences - and the possibility of achieving justice within the existing criminal law. The thesis scrutinises Court of Appeal judgments and provides a close reading of two cases: Zoora Shah, who remains convicted for murder, and Diana Butler, who was, on retrial, convicted for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.I argue that the murder/manslaughter and custody/probation distinctions are linked to the unintelligible/intelligible gender distinction. I further argue that in those cases in which a manslaughter conviction is achieved, the result can be seen to be both at once just and unjust. Whereas it may be 'legally just' when compared to cases involving men who have killed their partners, it is also 'socially unjust' due to the cultural imperialistic manner in which a woman's identity is constructed. Furthermore, the thesis highlights that, in addition to prevailing gender scripts to which women must conform, there also exists racial regulatory scripts which impact upon the construction of a woman's identity and her perceived cultural intelligibility. Attention is also paid to the instability of meaning which is considered to provide an opportunity for subversive transformation.In the conclusion the thesis forwards an overview of a proposed defence, which is based upon a reformulation of the battered woman syndrome and the defence of duress. This defence is considered to offer a more socially just outcome for womenwho kill

Equal Consideration and Informed Imagining: Recognising and Responding to the Lived Experiences of Abused Women Who Kill

Equality is a fundamental concern of human existence. Expressed in the principle of equality before the law it requires that those who come before the law are entitled to be treated as being of equal value and to be given ‘equal consideration’. In circumstances where those who come before the law are marked by their differences, giving of equal consideration requires that difference be understood and taken into account. The identification of difference does not of itself determine the question of whether different treatment is warranted in the interests of equality. However, this article argues that understanding difference is a precondition for the promotion of true equality and that, in pursuit of understanding difference, it is necessary for us to acknowledge the limitations of our capacity to understand the lived experience of ‘others’ and to actively work to engage with these experiences. In the context of the criminal justice system, we offer abused women who kill as illustrative of this need, focusing upon the availability and operation of self-defence in England/Wales, Queensland and Victoria. In doing so, we consider the capacity of the law, legal process and legal actors to engage with the lived experiences of these women, highlighting the importance of ‘informed imagining’

Almost abolitionism : the peculiarities of prostitution policy in England and Wales

This chapter will explore the current UK approach to abolitionism by examining how a popular Northern European prostitution agenda has been translated into the English context. We argue that while neo-abolitionism has, over the last decade, had a noticeable impact on prostitution policy and practice in the UK, this has its own peculiarities. Whilst mimicking the abolitionist tone of Sweden, governments in mainland Britain have thus far stopped short of criminalising all purchases of sexual services and decriminalising the activities of those who sell sex - who are deemed to be ‘victims’. Rather, governments have opted to modify the existing liberal regime by creating bespoke measures which seek to combine increased punitive sanctions for some clients with efforts to promote the exiting of women by the imposition of enforced rehabilitation. This has led to what we term as almost abolitionism: which describes a fragmented process of problematisation, whereby prostitution is both a public nuisance and sexual offence. Consequently, while only some forms of sex purchasing are illegal, the activity as a whole is increasingly pathologised and sex workers, represented universally in policy discourse as women, oscillate between being constructed as both victim and offender. Sidestepping the liberal/illiberal arguments that tend to dominate in this field, this chapter will provide a critical analysis of these developments. While it is important to keep in mind the critical work on abolitionism elsewhere (as discussed in this collection as a whole), the account is not based on generalisation from neighbouring states. Rather, and drawing upon England and Wales as a case study, we explore the local drivers and local impact of the distinctive interventions. More specifically, we critically analyse to two key reforms introduced by the Policing and Crime Act 2009, which reflect how this abolitionism has taken hold in England and Wales: the strict liability offence of paying for the sexual services of a prostitute subject to exploitation (s14) and Engagement and Support Orders (hereafter ESOs) to facilitate exiting and ‘rehabilitate’ on-street sex workers (s17). In relation to the latter we explore the findings of an empirical project which explored the effects of a ‘compulsory rehabilitation’ policy. In conclusion, we argue that this almost abolitionism – whilst reflecting the rhetoric of radical feminism and gender equality – results in a fundamentally responsibilizing, punitive and coercive response to commercial sexual activity. This, in turn, eschews alternative feminist conceptualisations of prostitution as sex work and excludes any recognition of the complex causal factors of both prostitution and trafficking

Reconceptualising On-Street Sex Work as a Complex Affective Assemblage

The chapter explores a reconceptualization of on-street sex work as a complex affective assemblages. Complex Affective Assemblage theory can be traced to Deleuze & Guattari's development of social assemblage theory most notably in 'A thousand Plateaus', but now extends into complexity theory, the affective turn in cultural studies, and new materialist philosophies, and is keenly associated with the (differing) assemblage theory of Massumi and Delanda. The chapter takes up the reconceptualization of on-street sex work in terms of this approach, and in particular draws upon an empirical study of the operation of Engagement and Support Orders in the complex affective assemblage of on-street sex work. The aim of this reconceptualization is to better address concerns of social justice for sex workers

Sexual violence and complainant intoxication

Sexual violence and complainant intoxicatio

Mother, Monster, Mrs, I:A critical evaluation of gendered naming strategies in English sentencing remarks of women who kill

In this article, we take a novel approach to analysing English sentencing remarks in cases of women who kill. We apply computational, quantitative, and qualitative methods from corpus linguistics to analyse recurrent patterns in a collection of English Crown Court sentencing remarks from 2012 to 2015, where a female defendant was convicted of a homicide offence. We detail the ways in which women who kill are referred to by judges in the sentencing remarks, providing frequency information on pronominal, nominative, and categorising naming strategies. In discussion of the various patterns of preference both across and within these categories (e.g. pronoun vs. nomination, title + surname vs. forename + surname), we remark upon the identities constructed through the references provided. In so doing, we: (1) quantify the extent to which members of the judiciary invoke patriarchal values and gender stereotypes within their sentencing remarks to construct female defendants, and (2) identify particular identities and narratives that emerge within sentencing remarks for women who kill. We find that judges refer to women who kill in a number of ways that systematically create dichotomous narratives of degraded victims or dehumanised monsters. We also identify marked absences in naming strategies, notably: physical identification normally associated with narrativization of women’s experiences; and the first person pronoun, reflecting omissions of women’s own voices and narratives of their lived experiences in the courtroom

Sketching women in court: The visual construction of co-accused women in court drawings

This paper explores the visual construction and representation of co-accused women offenders in court drawings. It utilises three case studies of female co-defendants who appeared in the England and Wales court system between 2003 and 2013. In doing so this paper falls into three parts. The first part considers the emergence of the sub-discipline, visual criminology and examines what is known about the visual representation of female offenders. The second part presents the findings of an empirical investigation, which involved engaging in a critical, reflexive visual analysis of a selection of court drawings of three female co-offenders. The third part discusses the ways in which the court artists' interpretation, the conventions of court sketching, and motifs of female offenders as secondary actors, drew on existing myths and prejudices by representing the women as listening, remorseless ‘others’

Saving fallen women now? Critical perspectives on engagement and support orders and their policy of forced welfarism

The UK seems set to follow the increasingly abolitionist trend that is taking hold in Europe in response to the issue of prostitution. While some argue that an abolitionist approach signals a serious attempt to tackle the injustices and gendered aspects of commercial sex, we are less optimistic. Drawing upon the findings of the first study to evaluate Engagement and Support Orders, we argue that any focus on women's needs is distorted by the continued zero tolerance approach to street sex work and the criminal justice setting it takes place in. New revolving doors have been created for those involved in the most visible sectors of the industry and support agencies have been made to take on an increased policing role. This narrow focus individualises the causes of poverty and prostitution, elides the wider structural factors that shape sex work and does little to address the real needs of this vulnerable group. In conclusion, we argue that future policy should engage more productively with the rich cultural study of sex work. This will enable the development of ground-up responses and allow for a more effective role for the criminal law