1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:03,000
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

2
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:10,000
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told you?

3
00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:18,000
Speaker 1: From housetop works dot com. Okay, welks to the podcast

4
00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,480
Speaker 1: Smiley and I'm Kristin. Kristin had talked about Nancy Drew.

5
00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:25,279
Speaker 1: It's super sleoth, she solves crimes. But today we're gonna

6
00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:28,280
Speaker 1: take on the flip side the people who commit crimes.

7
00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:32,159
Speaker 1: Usually Nancy was always checking down some bad man. But

8
00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:35,560
Speaker 1: I find myself kind of drawn to cases where the

9
00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:39,200
Speaker 1: criminal is a female because it so up ends any

10
00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:43,440
Speaker 1: um traditional ideas about femaleness and femininity that we might

11
00:00:43,479 --> 00:00:46,320
Speaker 1: have in mind. Yeah, it seems like women who commit

12
00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:49,360
Speaker 1: heinous crimes, such as the women involved in the Manson

13
00:00:49,400 --> 00:00:52,960
Speaker 1: family and murders, get a lot of media attention because,

14
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,760
Speaker 1: like you said, it challenges this kind of cultural idea

15
00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:58,680
Speaker 1: of UM the way women should act. How could they

16
00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:02,000
Speaker 1: commit such a nusky violent crime. Yeah, the fact that

17
00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: the Manson family members have been in the news lately

18
00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:07,720
Speaker 1: is what UM kind of inspired this podcast. Squeaky from

19
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:11,040
Speaker 1: who was jailed because she attempted to assassinate President Ford,

20
00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:14,320
Speaker 1: was recently released from jail. And then Susan Atkins, who

21
00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:17,760
Speaker 1: was involved with the infamous Sharon Tate murders. She recently

22
00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:21,119
Speaker 1: died in prison um and in the months leading up

23
00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:23,000
Speaker 1: to her death she was always in the news because

24
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:25,119
Speaker 1: she was trying to get out of jail, um because

25
00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:27,520
Speaker 1: she had brain cancers. She wanted compassionately, she wanted to

26
00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:29,480
Speaker 1: go home and die. But the fact that she had

27
00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:31,959
Speaker 1: been involved in these murders years before, they said, no,

28
00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:35,280
Speaker 1: you were involved with this, You're gonna pay. And I

29
00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:38,760
Speaker 1: just I was wondering whether we hear more about these

30
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:42,440
Speaker 1: ladies because there exceptions to the rule, or if they're

31
00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:45,920
Speaker 1: just the ones who make the headlines. Were they examples

32
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:49,000
Speaker 1: of a larger problem of women comming crimes or are

33
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:50,880
Speaker 1: they fascinating because they are the exception to the rule?

34
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:52,840
Speaker 1: Is there a gender gap in crime? Is there a

35
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:56,480
Speaker 1: gender gap in crime? Well, Molly, According to the Bureau

36
00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:59,160
Speaker 1: of Justice Statistics, there is a difference in the types

37
00:01:59,240 --> 00:02:02,680
Speaker 1: of crimes that men and women commit in the United States.

38
00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:06,559
Speaker 1: Um For instance, about two point one million violent crime

39
00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:10,200
Speaker 1: offenders in the US. A lot are women, but that's

40
00:02:10,240 --> 00:02:13,640
Speaker 1: only forty four percent of all of the violent crime

41
00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:16,399
Speaker 1: offenders who are arrested in the US, and a majority

42
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:18,639
Speaker 1: of the crime those violent crimes that women commit are

43
00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:22,240
Speaker 1: simple assaults. And those crimes are a little bit different

44
00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:25,160
Speaker 1: than the ones males commit. Females are more likely to

45
00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:29,040
Speaker 1: attack or kill another female, and they are also usually

46
00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:31,440
Speaker 1: involved in a case with a woman or a man

47
00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:34,640
Speaker 1: that they know, an intimate partner, a child. They're they're

48
00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:39,560
Speaker 1: not killing indiscriminate strangers the way that men sometimes do. Yeah,

49
00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:42,679
Speaker 1: And two thirds of the crimes that women are arrested

50
00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:48,560
Speaker 1: for are usually property crimes or drug related charges. Right.

51
00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:52,799
Speaker 1: And by property crimes, I mean things like fraud, embezzelment, forgery,

52
00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:56,919
Speaker 1: and going down to just even simple things like shoplifting, UM,

53
00:02:57,080 --> 00:02:59,320
Speaker 1: check fraud. That that. I don't want to imply that

54
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:02,600
Speaker 1: some crime they're just simpler than others. Yeah, but they are.

55
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,360
Speaker 1: You know, if you think about like mass murder versus

56
00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 1: forging a check, there does seem to be a little

57
00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:10,519
Speaker 1: bit from the moral spectrum, there does seem to be

58
00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:12,840
Speaker 1: a little bit of a difference. It is a crime,

59
00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:15,639
Speaker 1: a crime. That's what we're going to discuss today. Yeah,

60
00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:19,120
Speaker 1: and um and also the war on drugs has um

61
00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:21,640
Speaker 1: caused a spike in the number in the rate of

62
00:03:21,639 --> 00:03:25,120
Speaker 1: female incarceration because a lot more women are being arrested.

63
00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:29,120
Speaker 1: Not so much for you know, kingpin charges of pushing

64
00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:31,400
Speaker 1: a lot of cocaine across state lines and things like that.

65
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 1: It's more women who are selling dime bags on the corner,

66
00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,680
Speaker 1: like on weeds, like on weeats. So Breben Mom, well,

67
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:42,320
Speaker 1: she yeah, she's also more of the exception. But all

68
00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:45,920
Speaker 1: of this adds up to the fact that over the

69
00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:48,880
Speaker 1: past ten years, the rate of female incarceration has grown

70
00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:53,520
Speaker 1: nearly twice as fast as male incarceration. And this stack

71
00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:57,880
Speaker 1: comes from Women's Prison Association. The female prison population grew

72
00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:01,320
Speaker 1: by eight hundred and thirty two per cent from nineteen

73
00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:04,520
Speaker 1: seventy seven to two thousand seven. At the same time,

74
00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:08,520
Speaker 1: the male incarceration rate and prison population has risen too,

75
00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:13,080
Speaker 1: but um compared to that eight the male prison population

76
00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:16,240
Speaker 1: grew about half that in the same period, So there

77
00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:21,000
Speaker 1: has been an acceleration among female female crime committing it things. Additionally,

78
00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:25,080
Speaker 1: big spikes in female female juvenile rates um. And so

79
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:27,680
Speaker 1: let's take a look at who these women are. First

80
00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:29,520
Speaker 1: of all, you mentioned the war on drugs. That movement

81
00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:31,400
Speaker 1: are coming in on drug al age charges. A good

82
00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:34,080
Speaker 1: deal of them are also on drugs or under the

83
00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:37,520
Speaker 1: influence of a substance themselves. Nearly one in three women

84
00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:39,960
Speaker 1: serving time and state prison said they committed the offense

85
00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:42,719
Speaker 1: that they brought them to prison in order to get

86
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,880
Speaker 1: more drugs. Um. Also, let's take a look at the

87
00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 1: demographic breakdown of these ladies. Yeah, I think according to

88
00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 1: Bureau of Justice statistics, about six of women on probation

89
00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:57,880
Speaker 1: are white. But Moley, we found that in the prisons

90
00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:00,560
Speaker 1: there is it's a different story, right, They're more likely

91
00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,200
Speaker 1: to be minority women, Black, Hispanic, and other races, leading

92
00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:06,400
Speaker 1: some to say just with the males, same accusation that

93
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:11,240
Speaker 1: minors are disproportionately represented in prison populations. I was also

94
00:05:11,279 --> 00:05:13,640
Speaker 1: surprised that nearly a quarter of federal prison inmates who

95
00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:15,599
Speaker 1: are women are at least forty five year old five

96
00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:18,400
Speaker 1: forty five years old. And that also brings up the

97
00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:22,200
Speaker 1: point of the children, because a lot of these women

98
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:25,880
Speaker 1: who are arrested have kids at the time that they're arrested,

99
00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:27,840
Speaker 1: and about five percent of women who are arrested are

100
00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:30,240
Speaker 1: pregnant at the time that they are brought to jail, right,

101
00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:33,080
Speaker 1: and that brings up the issue of incarcerated mothers and

102
00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:36,200
Speaker 1: where the children go, because while the men come in

103
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:38,360
Speaker 1: having children, the women are more likely to have come

104
00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:41,480
Speaker 1: in being the sole caregiver for the child, which is

105
00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:44,320
Speaker 1: going to bring us into motives and why women commit

106
00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:47,440
Speaker 1: crimes in the first place. Yeah, there are four major

107
00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:51,039
Speaker 1: theories about why women commit crime, because this does go

108
00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:53,240
Speaker 1: back to the fact that we're even talking about why

109
00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:55,560
Speaker 1: women would commit crime. Kind of goes back to an

110
00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:59,080
Speaker 1: antiquated idea of women being the more moral sex and

111
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:02,279
Speaker 1: a fairer sex. Who could who what woman could deprive

112
00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:04,640
Speaker 1: another of a life? You would have the strength even

113
00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:07,120
Speaker 1: do so. In fact, in the early days, when a

114
00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:10,120
Speaker 1: female committed a crime, it was just considered an abnormality,

115
00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:13,440
Speaker 1: nothing worth studying. In the nineteenth century, one one guy

116
00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:16,919
Speaker 1: took the skulls of female criminals home and decided that

117
00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:19,280
Speaker 1: the reason they committed crimes just because they had abnormal

118
00:06:19,279 --> 00:06:22,839
Speaker 1: cranium sizes, because other theories included excessive body hair and

119
00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:25,679
Speaker 1: sexual deviance, Like, these women just weren't even worth studying

120
00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:29,000
Speaker 1: because they were so outside the norm of being female. Yeah,

121
00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:33,640
Speaker 1: but now, um, the the ideas about that have changed somewhat. Um,

122
00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:36,360
Speaker 1: Like I said a lot, yes, and and thankfully I

123
00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,679
Speaker 1: would say. Um, Like we said, there are four major

124
00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:42,320
Speaker 1: theories about why women creat crime, and um, the first

125
00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:44,279
Speaker 1: two are kind of similar. They're kind of hard to

126
00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:49,040
Speaker 1: tell apart, but they're the masculinity theory and the opportunity theory. Right.

127
00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:52,800
Speaker 1: The masculine theory links these spikes in criminal behavior to

128
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:57,080
Speaker 1: the changes and attitudes that the feminist movement brought about. Yeah, didn't,

129
00:06:57,200 --> 00:06:59,800
Speaker 1: uh didn't. Some of the media coined that the dark

130
00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:02,760
Speaker 1: side of empowerment or something like that. Apparently by telling

131
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,160
Speaker 1: women that they're just as good as men, they felt

132
00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:10,760
Speaker 1: empowered enough to start stabbing men. Odd, but that's that's

133
00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:15,080
Speaker 1: sociology for you. Theory, it's a theory. And then the

134
00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:18,000
Speaker 1: opportunity theory is kind of the same in that it's

135
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 1: saying that the more um opportunities that are open to women,

136
00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:23,960
Speaker 1: the more they'll take advantage of it. Like if you know,

137
00:07:24,040 --> 00:07:27,440
Speaker 1: you you put a woman in charge of finances at

138
00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:30,360
Speaker 1: a firm, and she will be more likely to embezzle.

139
00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:32,720
Speaker 1: I guess kind of like something like that. Yeah, they're

140
00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:34,480
Speaker 1: not saying that. You know, while you may have thought

141
00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,440
Speaker 1: that women are so moral, they actually aren't. Any more moral.

142
00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:40,440
Speaker 1: They just never had the opportunity to take money or

143
00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 1: to um be a criminal essentially. And then there is

144
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:47,920
Speaker 1: the economic marginalization theory, which I think kind of has

145
00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:50,840
Speaker 1: some merit because it's saying that it's it's also called

146
00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:54,040
Speaker 1: the gender inequality theory, and basically they're saying that since

147
00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:58,600
Speaker 1: women um are more economically disadvantaged than men, we are

148
00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:02,080
Speaker 1: more likely that pushes us to commit crimes because if

149
00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:04,040
Speaker 1: you think about, you know, the property crimes that we

150
00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:06,720
Speaker 1: were talking about that account for about a third of

151
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:11,040
Speaker 1: women's incarceration, A lot of that is things like uh,

152
00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:14,520
Speaker 1: petty theft and check forgery. Right there saying that yes,

153
00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:16,720
Speaker 1: women had more opportunities to get into the workplace, but

154
00:08:16,760 --> 00:08:19,600
Speaker 1: when they did, they found the other gender gap, the

155
00:08:19,640 --> 00:08:22,880
Speaker 1: gender gap in wages in whether their work was rewarded,

156
00:08:22,880 --> 00:08:24,800
Speaker 1: and so as a result of not being able to

157
00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:29,360
Speaker 1: make in meet, even in this time of improved economic conditions,

158
00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:32,200
Speaker 1: they will act out because of their poor pay to

159
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:35,040
Speaker 1: address the wrong. Provide for a family as so many

160
00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:37,559
Speaker 1: working females are trying to do right they're single heads

161
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,800
Speaker 1: of households um. And then finally we come down to

162
00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:45,640
Speaker 1: the chivalry theory. And this is basically the idea that

163
00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:49,439
Speaker 1: historically there have just been lower rates of um female

164
00:08:49,480 --> 00:08:53,280
Speaker 1: offenses because the criminal justice system treated them more leniently

165
00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:57,480
Speaker 1: because they were women. Right. Essentially, women were always committing crimes,

166
00:08:57,480 --> 00:08:59,920
Speaker 1: but they weren't necessarily going to jail for them or

167
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,600
Speaker 1: are getting in trouble at all. Yeah, And there was

168
00:09:02,679 --> 00:09:06,480
Speaker 1: one statistic um from the Bureau of Justice Statistics um

169
00:09:06,600 --> 00:09:10,160
Speaker 1: that found that in nine seven women were more likely

170
00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:13,920
Speaker 1: to get a lighter sentence than men for the same crime.

171
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:15,800
Speaker 1: So there has been a question of whether or not

172
00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:20,360
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system treats still treats women differently than

173
00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:23,199
Speaker 1: men simply for the fact of being women. And I

174
00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:25,720
Speaker 1: think that's the discussion we're going to head into next. Um,

175
00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:28,000
Speaker 1: when a woman commits a crime, should they be treated

176
00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,120
Speaker 1: any differently than a man? I mean, objectively, as a woman,

177
00:09:31,160 --> 00:09:33,120
Speaker 1: you want to say no, you know, we want to

178
00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:35,400
Speaker 1: be treated the same in everything else. Let's be treated

179
00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:37,920
Speaker 1: the same when it comes to crime. But the background

180
00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:41,800
Speaker 1: of these criminals leads some to believe that that maybe

181
00:09:41,800 --> 00:09:44,400
Speaker 1: there is a difference. Right, research has been done on

182
00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:48,319
Speaker 1: gender and crime has found that, uh, the social background

183
00:09:48,400 --> 00:09:51,559
Speaker 1: of male and female criminals is generally the same across

184
00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:55,360
Speaker 1: the board. UM. Male or female criminals usually come from

185
00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:59,840
Speaker 1: low socioeconomic backgrounds, they have low education rates, and they

186
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,560
Speaker 1: our disproportionately minority, which this kind of reminds me of

187
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:06,720
Speaker 1: what we were talking about in the Dating Violence podcast

188
00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:10,960
Speaker 1: where the question of how to UM prevent people from

189
00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:14,839
Speaker 1: becoming abusers, you really have to start on a community level.

190
00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:19,079
Speaker 1: But the real differences in terms of history came when it,

191
00:10:19,559 --> 00:10:23,320
Speaker 1: like you just mentioned abuse, physical and sexual abuse. The

192
00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 1: women in prisons had experienced far higher rates of physical

193
00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:29,120
Speaker 1: and sexual abuse and their male counterparts UM. According to

194
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:32,400
Speaker 1: Women's Days professor made a Chesney Lynn and it's been

195
00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:35,840
Speaker 1: a report a few places of women's survey reported that

196
00:10:35,880 --> 00:10:38,440
Speaker 1: they have been abused at least once before coming to prison.

197
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,680
Speaker 1: With men, it's twelve point two percent. Yeah, and with

198
00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:46,440
Speaker 1: sixty of those women who report sexual or physical abuse

199
00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:49,640
Speaker 1: say that it happened prior to the age of eighteen,

200
00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:53,000
Speaker 1: So this is something going pretty far back into a

201
00:10:53,120 --> 00:10:55,600
Speaker 1: childhood of history of abuse to women are dealing with,

202
00:10:55,679 --> 00:10:59,280
Speaker 1: and even with men who reported being abused at some point,

203
00:10:59,559 --> 00:11:02,400
Speaker 1: the path tern would stop as they grew older, because

204
00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:06,280
Speaker 1: a lot of these men would um turn from becoming

205
00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:10,720
Speaker 1: being the victim to being the abuser, right, whereas with women,

206
00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:13,640
Speaker 1: they were abused both as children and as young women,

207
00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:16,040
Speaker 1: and then you can follow sort of a logical train

208
00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:19,240
Speaker 1: of progression. The research indicates that women who are convicted

209
00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:22,280
Speaker 1: of murder or manslaughter, we're killing husbands or boyfriends who

210
00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:25,520
Speaker 1: had repeatedly or violently abused them. So not only do

211
00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:28,320
Speaker 1: they have a background of abuse, but then when they

212
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:30,880
Speaker 1: fell into abuse as they were older, they're trying to

213
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:36,120
Speaker 1: address the situation and it ends up causing a crime. Yeah,

214
00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:38,840
Speaker 1: but back to this question of how the criminal justice

215
00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:41,600
Speaker 1: system deals with men and women differently, I thought that

216
00:11:41,679 --> 00:11:45,640
Speaker 1: it um was interesting, Molly. This was also from the

217
00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:51,199
Speaker 1: paper by um Medachs knee Lynde from University of Hawaii.

218
00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:54,560
Speaker 1: She found that the number of women in prisons really

219
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:58,400
Speaker 1: spiked starting in the eighties, and the criminal justice system

220
00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,600
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with all of these new

221
00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:04,880
Speaker 1: women inmates, and um, they were forced to house women

222
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:09,800
Speaker 1: prisoners in places including remodeled hospitals, abandoned training schools, and

223
00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:14,040
Speaker 1: converted motels. So it seems like the criminal justice system

224
00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:18,680
Speaker 1: has struggled with how to deal with this influx of

225
00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:23,040
Speaker 1: female prisoners, particularly when you look at why the women

226
00:12:23,080 --> 00:12:24,840
Speaker 1: are coming in. That's why we're trying to look at

227
00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:27,720
Speaker 1: the motives behind it. Um, Let's say a woman comes

228
00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:31,680
Speaker 1: in having unfortunately, very sadly killed a child because of

229
00:12:31,760 --> 00:12:34,760
Speaker 1: something like postparmed depression. They're gonna need different sort of

230
00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:38,720
Speaker 1: programs while they're in prison. Then a man might who

231
00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:42,559
Speaker 1: just stole money to become richer. And going back to

232
00:12:42,640 --> 00:12:46,080
Speaker 1: what we were talking about with women in history of abuse,

233
00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:50,640
Speaker 1: we found that about twenty percent of women who end

234
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:55,000
Speaker 1: up in jails and prisons have been um on medications

235
00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:58,320
Speaker 1: for some kind of emotional disorder. So I feel like, um,

236
00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:00,440
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily want those women to be treating any

237
00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:02,480
Speaker 1: differently and sentencing, but it would be nice if there

238
00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:05,200
Speaker 1: are more programs available to them once they are sentenced

239
00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:07,680
Speaker 1: to get a life back on track. Smalling all of

240
00:13:07,679 --> 00:13:11,920
Speaker 1: this talk though about you know, most emotional and physical

241
00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:14,960
Speaker 1: and sexual abuse and all of these factors that are

242
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:19,320
Speaker 1: particularly related to female inmates. Um, is this just a

243
00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:23,640
Speaker 1: reformulation of the old argument that women criminals are just deviance?

244
00:13:23,679 --> 00:13:26,480
Speaker 1: I mean, are we really just making excuses for the

245
00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:28,960
Speaker 1: crimes that women are committing saying like, oh, well, she

246
00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:32,280
Speaker 1: she just stole the two dollars so that she could

247
00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:35,640
Speaker 1: buy her kids clothes, whereas you know, oh, well he

248
00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:38,720
Speaker 1: stole it so that he could buy himself a new jacket, right,

249
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:40,240
Speaker 1: I mean I do. That was what was sort of

250
00:13:40,280 --> 00:13:42,120
Speaker 1: roaring to me when we were preparing this, is that

251
00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:44,719
Speaker 1: all these people trying to come up with theories as

252
00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:47,640
Speaker 1: to why women do commit crimes are almost explaining away

253
00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:50,280
Speaker 1: the fact that a woman committed a crime. Yeah, And

254
00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:54,120
Speaker 1: I think it's also ignoring the similar social backgrounds that

255
00:13:54,280 --> 00:13:57,960
Speaker 1: are leading people men and women into crime that I

256
00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:00,080
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. I mean, if you go down to the

257
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:04,120
Speaker 1: community level, there are problems obviously in the educational system, um,

258
00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:09,760
Speaker 1: obviously in job opportunities and all those different factors from

259
00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:12,880
Speaker 1: childhood that are going to put people out on the

260
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:14,839
Speaker 1: streets and pushed to the point of having to commit

261
00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:17,200
Speaker 1: a crime. But I think that when anyone commits a crime,

262
00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:19,880
Speaker 1: we look for a reason why, right, And so we

263
00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:22,360
Speaker 1: are more sympathetic when it's something like, oh, she couldn't

264
00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:25,520
Speaker 1: feed our children, as opposed to oh, he was the

265
00:14:25,560 --> 00:14:31,000
Speaker 1: CEO and just wanted another lake house. Um. But it's

266
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:34,120
Speaker 1: when we can't find a motive that it's most chilling,

267
00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:35,880
Speaker 1: I think because we just can't relate. We want to

268
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:39,200
Speaker 1: relate with these people somehow emili when we talk about,

269
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: you know, relating with criminals, the experience of criminals, and

270
00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:46,400
Speaker 1: kind of getting inside the criminal mind. UM. I think

271
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:48,920
Speaker 1: one interesting case study to look at is sort of

272
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:52,960
Speaker 1: our fascination with the um woman portrayed in the movie

273
00:14:53,280 --> 00:14:57,840
Speaker 1: Monster right Alien warn Us. Yes, so, like you mentioned,

274
00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:00,960
Speaker 1: she had um a sad background. By the time she

275
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,480
Speaker 1: was in high school, she was working as a prostitute. UM.

276
00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:05,680
Speaker 1: She'd been married and divorced and in jail for grand

277
00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:09,760
Speaker 1: theft auto um. And so then she meets Tyria Moore.

278
00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:12,360
Speaker 1: I may not be pronouncing the name right, but this

279
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,080
Speaker 1: was the character Christina Ricci's character played in that movie,

280
00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:19,080
Speaker 1: and so Warnos was supporting them by working as a prostitute.

281
00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:21,200
Speaker 1: And by the way, side, no, we read a lot

282
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:25,240
Speaker 1: about um whether a prostitution could explain spikes in female

283
00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 1: crimes and how much it was still a male dominated

284
00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:30,880
Speaker 1: business because they were the ones we're getting caught. Usually

285
00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:34,520
Speaker 1: we're working for the man. Yeah, so interesting by the

286
00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:37,600
Speaker 1: man I mean of him. Yes, So anyway back to

287
00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:40,280
Speaker 1: the case of Case of Monster. And so one night,

288
00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 1: UM she was out on a job and the her

289
00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:47,160
Speaker 1: client tried to rape her and she ended up shooting

290
00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:50,440
Speaker 1: him three times and killed him. And in that case,

291
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:52,200
Speaker 1: you know, you might be able to say, well, obviously

292
00:15:52,240 --> 00:15:55,280
Speaker 1: it's self defense. A woman is, you know, possibly going

293
00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: to be raped, She's got to do something to protect herself.

294
00:15:58,520 --> 00:16:01,120
Speaker 1: And I think cases like that do happen. But then

295
00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:04,920
Speaker 1: things kind of spiral out of control, right and you

296
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:07,440
Speaker 1: know the movie. I've seen the movie, and you know,

297
00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:10,840
Speaker 1: you kind of are are torn between places where she

298
00:16:10,920 --> 00:16:13,200
Speaker 1: really does feel threatened in places where she just wants

299
00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:15,320
Speaker 1: to kill someone. Yeah, you kind of want to sympathize

300
00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:17,760
Speaker 1: with her, but then at a point you're like, wait, wait,

301
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:20,680
Speaker 1: you're just killing people. Now, hold on a second. So

302
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:23,880
Speaker 1: she got a lot of attention during her case because

303
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:27,120
Speaker 1: as mental philosophus, she was always her own worst enemy,

304
00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:30,160
Speaker 1: shrieking at the assistant State Attorney General, I hope your

305
00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:33,640
Speaker 1: wife and children get raped. And basically they were able

306
00:16:33,680 --> 00:16:35,920
Speaker 1: to pin the crimes on her by getting her girlfriend

307
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:40,760
Speaker 1: to UM confess in a phone phone phone tape. Now,

308
00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:42,920
Speaker 1: on the flip side of that, we have UM, a

309
00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:48,480
Speaker 1: criminal who really hasn't been very prominent in popular culture,

310
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:52,560
Speaker 1: and it might just be because she it's very cold

311
00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:54,640
Speaker 1: blooded when we think about a cold blooded criminal. The

312
00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:59,640
Speaker 1: case of Jane Toppin really exemplifies that in my opinion. Um,

313
00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:01,600
Speaker 1: I don't she had kind of a sad childhood. I

314
00:17:01,600 --> 00:17:04,960
Speaker 1: mean that's the thing. Are we making excuses for sad childhoods? Well,

315
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:07,840
Speaker 1: she her mother died and so left her with a drunken,

316
00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:11,840
Speaker 1: violent father. Yes, and that goes back once again, community

317
00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:14,960
Speaker 1: social backgrounds. What's going on on that level? Where are

318
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:18,600
Speaker 1: the roots? Um? But anyway, Jane Toppan has this rough,

319
00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:22,480
Speaker 1: rough and tumble childhood and um, she ends up kind

320
00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:27,399
Speaker 1: of faking her way into um working as a nurse,

321
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,320
Speaker 1: and she's very fascinated with uh, this mixture of atropine

322
00:17:32,359 --> 00:17:38,119
Speaker 1: and morphine so that she could poison patients without being

323
00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:41,320
Speaker 1: caught because some something to do with being able to

324
00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:43,479
Speaker 1: dilate their eyes would make it look like they just

325
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:46,280
Speaker 1: died from morphine. And so she would go in and

326
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:50,480
Speaker 1: poison all of these people and would reportedly climb into

327
00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,960
Speaker 1: bed with them as they were dying and get a

328
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:56,640
Speaker 1: certain erotic rush from the whole thing. Yeah, she would

329
00:17:56,680 --> 00:17:58,760
Speaker 1: kill just dozens of them at night when she was

330
00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:01,040
Speaker 1: on the shift. And time we were talking about is

331
00:18:01,080 --> 00:18:04,360
Speaker 1: turn of the century, and so she just she might

332
00:18:04,400 --> 00:18:07,200
Speaker 1: be the woman who's killed the most. Um. They only

333
00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:10,520
Speaker 1: got her to confess to eleven killings, but the book

334
00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:14,000
Speaker 1: American Murder posits it might be closer to hundreds. And

335
00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:16,119
Speaker 1: she was only coughty because she went on vacation with

336
00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:18,760
Speaker 1: this family and started killing them all right there in

337
00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:22,600
Speaker 1: the vacation home, which led to some suspicion. Yeah, she

338
00:18:22,720 --> 00:18:26,600
Speaker 1: killed the husband, wife, and the two married daughters, and

339
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 1: then the husband of one of the murdered daughters. I

340
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:34,080
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, the old Jane doing. But

341
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:36,680
Speaker 1: I think that our reaction to this case shows how

342
00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:39,440
Speaker 1: quickly we can turn because at first I was like, oh,

343
00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:43,720
Speaker 1: you know, sad childhood alienation, and then when you read

344
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:46,399
Speaker 1: that killing people gave her this sexual rush, then you're like,

345
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,239
Speaker 1: I can't relate to that. So it's it's weird how

346
00:18:51,240 --> 00:18:54,600
Speaker 1: we flip on them. IM only I think that that

347
00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:57,040
Speaker 1: right there is one of the reasons why it is

348
00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:58,679
Speaker 1: hard to answer the question of whether or not the

349
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:02,359
Speaker 1: criminal justice system should treat men and women differently, because

350
00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:06,480
Speaker 1: we still have these societal ideas about you know, women's

351
00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:08,560
Speaker 1: behavior and men's behavior, but at the end of the day,

352
00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:12,000
Speaker 1: they are committing different types of crimes and there are

353
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:15,959
Speaker 1: different factors um in their personal lives, such as the

354
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:21,399
Speaker 1: emotional and physical abuse, sexual abuse, and um the very

355
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:24,919
Speaker 1: fact of mothers in prison too, because it just continues

356
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:28,040
Speaker 1: a vicious cycle where a child grows up in very

357
00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:30,480
Speaker 1: you know, in awful conditions and microw up to a

358
00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:32,639
Speaker 1: life of crime themselves. Yeah, so I think that we

359
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:37,040
Speaker 1: have to leave this question unanswered. Okay, Kristen. So we're

360
00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:39,679
Speaker 1: not going to close the female gender gap with crime,

361
00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:42,639
Speaker 1: but let's go ahead and close out this podcast with

362
00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:47,040
Speaker 1: some with some lighter liner notes. Listener mail, just a male,

363
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:53,800
Speaker 1: how about some hair mail? Hairmail? Oh, that's cute. Our

364
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:56,399
Speaker 1: first emails from Heather, who writes that she is a

365
00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,800
Speaker 1: feminist with female pattern alopecia. She writes, I am twenty

366
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:02,120
Speaker 1: nine years old and a student at the University of Akron.

367
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:04,479
Speaker 1: I started to lose my hair very slowly several years ago,

368
00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:06,439
Speaker 1: but didn't really pay attention until the hair loss was

369
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:08,280
Speaker 1: so profound that I couldn't come over to hide the

370
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:11,639
Speaker 1: thinness anymore. I tried wearing wigs, but they were very uncomfortable.

371
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:14,600
Speaker 1: They're hot and scratchy, and even the expensive ones feel

372
00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 1: like a moist basket hat hybrid At the end of

373
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:20,040
Speaker 1: the day. Synthetic fibers are tricky because they can literally

374
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:22,200
Speaker 1: melt on your head if they get hot, and real

375
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:24,080
Speaker 1: human hair is a pain because of the first factor

376
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:26,720
Speaker 1: and high maintenance required. So after a year of trying

377
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: to hide under a wig, I came to the conclusion

378
00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:30,920
Speaker 1: that would rather shave my head and be free and

379
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 1: incredibly comfortable. Now I feel much more confident bald than

380
00:20:34,080 --> 00:20:36,359
Speaker 1: I ever did trying to hide my condition. I am

381
00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:40,080
Speaker 1: a feminist, and I felt like a disingenuous trader, cyclinging

382
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,440
Speaker 1: to somewhat rigid, ridiculously unnatural and oppressive beauty norms. Under

383
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: my wig, it wasn't my hair, and I was always

384
00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:47,560
Speaker 1: afraid that someone would figure that out. So I wasn't

385
00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:51,040
Speaker 1: physically comfortable, competent, or ethically satisfied. Until I shaved my

386
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:53,399
Speaker 1: hair completely, I walked taller and feel like I finally

387
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:56,440
Speaker 1: own my look. I also know now that my hair

388
00:20:56,600 --> 00:20:59,600
Speaker 1: or lock thereof, reflects my convictions. I am proud to

389
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:01,639
Speaker 1: be wrong enough to shed my locks and stand on

390
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:04,400
Speaker 1: my merit and not just my good looks. Thanks Heather

391
00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:06,560
Speaker 1: for running in and as always, if you guys have

392
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:09,640
Speaker 1: any questions or comments, Molly and I love to hear

393
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,479
Speaker 1: from you guys. Our email is mom Stuff at how

394
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:14,679
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and during the week, if you

395
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:16,920
Speaker 1: want to see what Molly and I are writing, you

396
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,479
Speaker 1: should head over to our blog. It's called how to Stuff.

397
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:23,920
Speaker 1: And as always, if you want to learn more about

398
00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 1: anything that's on your mind, any old thing at all,

399
00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:32,080
Speaker 1: just head on over to how stuff works dot com

400
00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does

401
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:38,760
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

402
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:41,199
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

403
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two

404
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:50,880
Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you