Presented at the 2014 Psychology Student Conference.

1. Emily Keys

2. Previous Research

 Daly (1994)
 29% gender gap in incarceration rates, women treated more
leniently
 20% after controls such as previous criminal background
 13.3 months less time in prison awarded to guilty women
compared to male defendants who committed similar crimes
 Rodriguez, Curry and Lee (2006)
 3.22 years less time in prison awarded to guilty women
compared to male defendants who committed similar crimes

3. Previous Research

 Stewart & Maddren (1997)
 Police officers initial blame attribution in domestic
abuse cases
 Male assailants were continuously blamed more than
female assailants
 Focus on attribution of blame towards assailants

4. Hypothesis

 To investigate how a defendant's gender affects:
 Criminal verdicts
 Criminal sentencing
 Attribution of blame
 It was expected that female defendants would
consistently be treated with more leniency across all
three factors

5. Method

 40 male and 40 female participants
 Opportunity sampling
 Exclusion criteria for under 18’s
 Collected information via a survey method using a
questionnaire created for the research

6. Questionnaire

 6 scenarios: 3 severity
crime levels
 High severity
 Murder &
Manslaughter
 Moderate severity
 Domestic violence &
Benefit Fraud
 Low severity
 Theft & Vandalism
 Within each scenario there
were 3 questions
1. Would you find the
defendant guilty or not
guilty?
2. Imagine the defendant was
to be found guilty, how
would you sentence them?
3. Imagine the defendant was
found guilty, what
percentage would you say
they should be blamed
individually compared to
external factors?

7. Questionnaire

 Counter balancing
 2 questionnaires
 Each alternated male and female defendants
 e.g. the first questionnaire had a female murderer the
second had a male, this was repeated for all scenarios
 This was to ensure the result reflected the gender of
the defendant and not the crime
 e.g. the verdict was guilty because of the changing
gender of the defendant not because the crime was
vandalism

8. Pilot Study

 A pilot study, used to test the effectivness of the
questionnaire, combined with a peer review led to 2
changes
 Participants wanted more information
 One additional incriminating and one additional mitigating
factor was added
 e.g. incriminating factor is alcohol on breath, mitigating factor is
single parent
 Effectively solved the issue
 The word charge was used, insinuating guilt
 The peer review also combated some ethical issues

9. Results


10. Results – High severity

2.2
2.1
2
1.9
1.8
Sentence
Sentence
Male Female
1.48
1.47
1.46
1.45
1.44
Crime
Not guilty
Male Female
75
74
73
72
71
70
Blame
Blame
Male Female

11. Results – Moderate
severity

1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Crime
Not guilty
Male Female
2
1.9
1.8
1.7
1.6
1.5
1.4
Sentence
Sentence
Male Female
70
68
66
64
62
60
58
56
54
Blame
Blame
Male Female

12. Results – Low severity

1.8
1.75
1.7
1.65
1.6
1.55
1.5
1.45
1.4
Crime
Not guilty
Male Female
2.1
2
1.9
1.8
1.7
1.6
1.5
Sentence
Sentence
Male Female
74
72
70
68
66
64
62
60
Blame
Blame
Male Female

13. Discussion

 Non-significant result could be due to severity of the crime
 If crimes were more stereotypical i.e. axe murderer, this
could change the outcome
 Potential for future research
 Mock trial
 More in depth reasoning into blame process
 Results could negatively impact the legal system, women
taking responsibility for crimes they have not commited

14. Discussion

 There is potential to increase guidelines in jury
service
 Cannot generalise to legal professionals
 By using scenarios and counterbalance methods the
effect gender has is clear and this is a step closer to
understanding why there is a gap

15. Conclusion

We need more research
We need an in depth look into why women are
blamed less
We need to understand why men are blamed more