Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:7th Nov '91
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book explores how the Victorians perceived and explained female crime, and how they responded to it - both in penal theory and prison practice. In Victorian England women made up a far larger proportion of those known to be involved in crime than they do today; the nature of female criminality attracted considerable attention and preoccupied those trying to provide for women within the penal system. Lucia Zedner's rigorously researched study examines the extent to which gender-based ideologies influenced attitudes to female criminality. She charts the shift from the moral analyses dominant in the mid-nineteenth century to the interpretation of criminality as biological or psychological disorder prevalent later. Using a wide variety of sources - including prison regulations, diaries, letters, punishment books, grievances and appeals, Dr Zedner explores both penological theory and the realities of prison life. This is a rich and scholarly study, which reveals much about the relationship between responses to female criminality and prevailing social values and concerns.
`This book makes a significant contribution to criminal history. Women, Crime and Custody is also a welcome redress to exicting male-orientated nineteenth-century prison history ... Zender ably summarizes various nineteenthy-century theories of female crime and reveals the shifting sands upon which notions of criminality are based ... For criminal historians this book provides a gendered juxtaposition to recent work.' Gender and History
`Zedner has provided very interesting material, the chapters on "inebriates" and the "feeble-minded" being especially useful. ... this text will undoubtedly be useful to any scholarship which recognises the limitations of gender-blindness.' Carol Smart, Times Higher Education Supplement.
`excellent contribution to Victorian social history, ... Her sweep is broad; in a clear style, she does an excellent job of summarizing crime trends, penal theory, and perceptions of women. A fascinating work from start to finish. All levels.' P.T. Smith, Choice
'Lucia Zedner has written a book which is a major contribution to the literature of both criminology and social history. Historians will wish to read this book for the insights it provides into relatively neglected topics of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century social and penal history ... well-written and impeccably produced.' Frances Heidensohn, Goldsmith's College, University of London, Social History Society Newsletter, Autumn 1992
'rigorously researched study ... This is a rich and scholarly study.' A.J. Stolberg, CJ International, Volume 8, Number 6, November-December, 1992
'It is a pioneering work, in every sense, and will command the attention of historians. This book is a major work, compelling, ideologically consistent, and often convincing.' David J.V. Jones, University College of Swansea, Legal History, Vol. 13, No. 3, Dec '92
'admirable study' Judith Knelman, University of Western Ontario, Victorian Studies Association of Ontario Newsletter, No. 51, Spring '93
'This study of female crime and custody in nineteenth-century England provides both the specialist and the general reader an important perspective on gender that is absent from previous studies. The work is written in a clear and direct style and is mercifully free of jargon ... this volume adds to our knowledge of Victorian crime and punishment.' David F. Smith, University of Puget Sound, Albion, Winter '92. Vol. 24, No. 4
'Zedner's study provides a useful reminder that in the nineteenth century women formed a much more substantial fraction of those charged with offences and committed to custody than they do today.' David Garland, University of Edinburgh, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 33, No. 1, Winter 1993
'No short summary can do justice to this innovative and elegantly written study, which interweaves theoretical sophistication with an impressive command of the evidence.^' A.W. Brian Simpson, University of Michigan Law School, Journal of British Studies, Jan 1993
'a scholarly monograph' Carolyn A. Conley, University of Alabama at Birmingham, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. XXXVII, January 1993
ISBN: 9780198202646
Dimensions: 225mm x 148mm x 28mm
Weight: 620g
372 pages