REFLECTIVE ESSAY: OFFENDING FEMALES

Reflective Essay: Offending Females

Reflective Essay: Offending Females

Introduction

It has been observed that most of the theories dealing with the issues of offending were developed by male experts in criminology aimed at explaining the nature, characteristics and scope of male crime. But recently, there has been a surge in theories to explain the different aspects of female offending. Although female offenders are far less in numbers than offending males, the issue still raises various questions and demands serious attention of the society in order to assess and eliminate the causes behind this problem. Since female offenders are, generally, deeply resented by the society, nobody ever attempts to find out the reasons behind these women exhibiting deviant behavior in order to understand different factors that contributed to these women committing offense. This paper aims presenting the writer's reflections about offending women, while exploring the domestic, social and psychological causes of this phenomenon.

Discussion

According to the research statistics, many offending women going through the procedures of criminal justice system are found to be frequently repeating the offense. These women often have complex needs that are related to their histories of abuse, social and domestic circumstances, history of mental health issues, and drug addiction problems. As I personally believe, and is also now widely recognized, appropriate actions should be taken on urgent basis in order to prevent these women from reoffending and ending up spending a major part of their lives behind bars.

I completely agree to the opinion strongly presented by some factions in the society that there are women who should be kept behind bars to ensure public safety, as these women have an established history of repeatedly engaging in criminal or offending activities and do not show signs of improvement despite being treated rigorously at different stages during their institutionalization. Nonetheless, opportunities for rehabilitation and treatment should not cease to exist even for these women as there are chances, though minimal, that these women will recover and do not reoffend and thus could be sent back to join the community (Zaplin, 2006).

But my background reading on the subject shows that there are also those women with repeated convictions for being involved in lower level crimes. Moreover, the offenses committed by these women are also caused by various significant issues such as health problems, alcohol or drug abuse that could be addressed in an effective manner by a little effort ...