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6 Asian J. Criminology 1 (2011)

handle is hein.journals/asjrcrm6 and id is 1 raw text is: Asian Criminology (2011) 6:1-14 DOI 10.1007/s11417-010-9098-z Female Defendants and Criminal Courts in Taiwan: An Observation Study Hua-Fu Hsu - Bohsiu Wu Received: 8 November 2009 /Accepted: 7 October 2010 / Published online: 3 November 2010 O Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract It has long been contended that the criminal justice system extends the influence of patriarchy in society. Feminist and critical criminologists have produced countless examples of the male domination in the criminal justice system. Critics of law and criminal justice point out that the system treats women the same way as does the mainstream society (MacKinnon 1989, 1991; Smart 1989). Therefore, criminal justice cannot be expected to remedy injustices legally before they are recognized as injustices socially. Sociological studies in crime and delinquency have also neglected gender issues. By employing the qualititaive research approach of field observation, this study focuses on how practitioners in three criminal courts in Southern Taiwan interact with female defendants. The findings point out that the court system was unbending in treating the observed defendants in a condescending manner, and expedited the trial process to pronounce the defendants' guilt. The study aims to offer explicit and nuanced empirical evidence of how gender complicates courtroom interaction. Evidence from this study also forms the basis for policy recommendations and future reform in the criminal justice system. Keywords Criminal justice - Female defendants - Discipline - Gender study Introduction Feminist criminologists have long pointed out the neglect of the gender factor in the study of crime and justice. Female offenders have not received enough attention as compared to their male counterparts in the study of the etiology of crime. Further, female offenders have also encountered systematic bias in criminal justice proceedings (Eaton 1986). Women who commit crimes are viewed as suffering from moral corruption, mental deficiency, and H.-F. Hsu (E) Department and Graduate Institute of Criminology, National Chung-Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan e-mail: crmhfh@ccu.edu.tw B. Wu Department of Sociology, California State University, Sacramento, Sacramento, CA 95819-6005, USA 4Z Springer

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