Partners in crime
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895808088992 |
| Published date | 01 May 2008 |
| Date | 01 May 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
147
Partners in crime:
A study of the relationship between female
offenders and their co-defendants
STEPHEN JONES
University of Bristol, UK
Abstract
Criminologists have paid relatively little attention to the relationships
between male and female co-offenders. Most of the published
research has been published in the USA and relates to the street-
level drugs economy. In this project, 50 sentenced adult women
were interviewed in an English prison about their criminal involvement
with co-defendants. The picture that emerged revealed the
widespread use of devices by males ranging from various forms of
manipulation to direct physical coercion in order to ensure female
compliance with their criminal activities. These findings stand in
contrast to statements in some of the more recent literature, which
seek to emphasize women’s agency in their offending behaviour.
The implications of these findings for the criminal liability and
sentencing of women are discussed.
Key Words
agency • co-defendants • coercion • sentencing • women
[Myra Hindley] described how Brady had once drugged her, and when she
came round he was leering over her. She said she thought her life was in dan-
ger … But the letter also revealed her obsession with him and a few months
after sending it she asked her friend to destroy it. She was by then completely
in Brady’s thrall.
(Ritchie, 1988: 32)
Criminology & Criminal Justice
© 2008 SAGE Publications
(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
and the British Society of Criminology.
www.sagepublications.com
ISSN 1748–8958; Vol: 8(2): 147–164
DOI: 10.1177/1748895808088992
Hindley was a woman of competent understanding … The argument that
she was not the ‘actual killer’ must be put in perspective. Her role in the
murders was pivotal. Without her active participation the five children
would probably still be alive today.
(Lord Steyn, Rv. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex part
Hindley, House of Lords, 30 March 2000)
Introduction
Reports of women’s involvement in crime have always been considered
newsworthy and likely to capture the public’s imagination. This is not
simply because female offending is relatively uncommon: the condemnation
heaped upon the ‘fallen’ woman is greater than that which would be ex-
perienced by a man in the same situation. Despite the greater freedoms
enjoyed by women nowadays, there remains an underlying belief within many
sections of society that they should conform to their traditional roles of wife
and mother, and any significant lapse which can be related to criminal
behaviour will result in their portrayal as ‘doubly deviant’—both offenders
against society and contraveners of the norms governing their expected sex-
role behaviour (Heidensohn, 1970).
Particular interest has been shown in women who have committed vio-
lent or sexual crimes with men, particularly where the victims were child-
ren. Perhaps the most notorious case in Britain was that of Myra Hindley
who, together with her boyfriend Ian Brady, was involved in the torture and
murder of several children in the early 1960s. Although it has been claimed
that Brady was the instigator of the crimes (see earlier), it was Hindley who
remained a national hate-figure until her death in 2002. In recent years she
has been replaced in the public imagination by Maxine Carr, the girlfriend
of the child murderer Ian Huntley. Yet Carr’s only conviction was for per-
verting the course of justice, which resulted from her providing the police
with a false alibi for Huntley on the day of the killings. (Indeed, the jury’s
verdict suggests that it did not believe that Carr thought Huntley had com-
mitted murder at the point she decided to give a false alibi.) Rose West is
another woman who became notorious following her conviction for mur-
ders committed with her husband, Fred. However, it has been suggested
that there was little evidence to support her conviction and that she was
effectively condemned by the jury both for the association with her husband
and her sexually deviant lifestyle (Masters, 1996).
The level of interest shown by the media in every little detail of the
involvement of Hindley, West and Carr with their male partners is in stark
contrast to the interest shown in the relationships between women and men
who are involved in everyday routine criminality. Nor have criminologists
devoted much attention to this area. Research into female offending has
concentrated more on abuse, both physical and sexual, or women’s experience
of imprisonment. Studies of co-offending are usually based on juveniles in
Criminology & Criminal Justice 8(2)148
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