Women accused of killing with others: Experiences of the Scottish criminal justice system
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Author | Rachel McPherson |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12490 |
Received: 6 December 2021 Accepted: 6 April 2022
DOI: 10.1111/ho jo.12490
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Women accused of killing with others:
Experiences of the Scottish criminal
justice system
Rachel McPherson
Lecturer in Criminal Law, University of
Glasgow
Correspondence
Rachel McPherson, Lecturer in Criminal
Law,University of Glasgow.
Email: Rachel.Mcpherson@glasgow.ac.uk
Abstract
This article examines homicide cases in which women
have been accused of killing alongside another person
or persons – an area which until now has not been
examined in a Scottish context. The findings presented
demonstrate that being accused of killing with another
person or persons can have particularly adverse effects
for women: claims of domestic abuse are more likely to
be rejected and ultimately, existing tendencies to con-
struct women as deviant within the criminal justice
system will be exacerbated, resulting in more severe
punishment when they are convicted under the doctrine
of art and part liability. It is concluded that closer atten-
tion must be paid to the criminalisation of women who
are accused of offending alongside another person or
persons, particularly in Scotland where less attention
has been paid to how doctrines of derivative liability
operate in practice.
KEYWORDS
art and part liability, criminalisation, domestic abuse, female-
perpetrated homicide, intimate partner homicide, joint liability,
sentencing
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, providedthe original work is properly cited.
© 2022 The Authors. The HowardJournal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
484 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hojo HowardJ. Crim. Justice. 2022;61:484–501.
THE HOWARDJOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE 485
1 INTRODUCTION
This article provides an original contribution to existing literatureon women who kill and on liter-
ature relating to joint liability.Both areas are under-researched in a Scottish context and women’s
criminalisation for homicide through the Scots law doctrine of art and part liability has never been
the subject of previous research. This examination is timely,coming as it does at a time when the
Scottish Law Commission is reviewing homicide and the Scottish Government has initiated a call
for evidence on women’s experiences of the justice system.
Although much is known about female-perpetrated homicide (Brookman & Nolan,2006; Chan,
2001; Flynn et al., 2013; Gillespie, 1989; Kirkwood, 2003;Swatt&He,2006;Walker,1989) very little
attention has been paid to the contexts in which women are accused of killing with others in crim-
inological studies across all jurisdictions. Elsewhere, in legal literature, the operation of doctrines
which facilitate the conviction of multiple defendants for the actions of one have been the subject
of interrogation in England and Wales (Carvalho, 2020; Clarke & Chadwick, 2020;Krebs,2019),
but such research has not been replicated in a Scottish context. It is at this intersection in which
this article situates itself. Findings will be presented on Scottish cases in which women have been
accused of homicide alongside another person or persons and how such cases compare with cases
in which women have been accused of killing alone. These findings will be presented across four
themes which have been identified as highly significant to women in the context of joint liabil-
ity and homicide cases: (i) access to justice in terms of conviction rates, sentencing and the use
of criminal defences; (ii) the construction of women as facilitators of violence; (iii) women’s rela-
tionship with their co-accused; and (iv) responses to claims of domestic abuse and sexual violence
in the context of intimate partner homicide (IPH). It will be shown that being accused of killing
with another person or persons can have particularly adverse effects for women: existing tenden-
cies to construct women as deviant within the criminal justice system are exacerbated, resulting
in more severe punishment when they are convicted under the doctrine of art and part liability. It
will be concluded that attention must now be paid to the operation of doctrines of joint liability in
cases involving a female accused, especially in a jurisdiction which has given little consideration
to how the doctrine of art and part liability operates in practice.
2 STUDIES ON FEMALE-PERPETRATED HOMICIDE
Internationally,most research on homicide has focused on male-perpetrated homicide, reflecting
the fact that women kill less frequently than men. It has been estimated that female-perpetrated
homicide accounts for approximately 10% of all homicide internationally (Moen et al., 2016). Most
studies on female-perpetrated homicide have focused on homicide within the US, but increas-
ingly studies from other countries are emerging. Existing studies have centralised the importance
of social capital in understanding homicide as a phenomenon, concluding that those with
better social and financial resources are less likely to kill (Moen, Nygren & Edin,2016; Polk, 1995;
Wol fga ng, 1958).
Repeatedly, it has been found that womenare most likely to commit homicide within intimate
and family relationships (Chan, 2001; Eriksson et al., 2021; Sea et al., 2018) and, specifically, it
has been recognised that women typically kill male partners and often against a background of
domestic abuse (Browne, 1987; Caman et al, 2016; Chan, 2001; Gillespie, 1989; Moen, Nygren &
Edin, 2016;Swatt&He,2006). Differences have been identified between female offenders who
kill within the family and those who kill outside the family, with those who kill within the family
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