Shani D'Cruze and Louise A. Jackson provide students with a lively overview of women's relationship to the criminal justice system in England, exploring key debates in the regulation of 'respectable' and 'deviant' femininities over the last four centuries. Major issues include: * attitudes towards murder and infanticide * prostitution * the decline of witchcraft belief * sexual violence * the 'girl delinquent' * theft and fraud The volume also examines women's participation in illegal forms of protest and political activism, their experience of penal regimes as well as strategies of resistance, and their involvement in occupations associated with criminal justice itself. Assuming that men and women cannot be studied in isolation, D'Cruze and Jackson make reference to recent studies of masculinity and comment on the ways in which relations between men and women have been understood and negotiated across time. Featuring examples drawn from a rich range of sources such as court records, autobiographies, literature and film, this is an ideal introduction to an increasingly popular area of study.

This book seeks to unravel the issues associated with the crime of murder, providing a highly accessible account of the subject for people coming to it for the first time. It uses detailed case studies as a way of exemplifying and exploring more general questions of socio-cultural responses to murder and their explanation. It incorporates a historical perspective which both provides some fascinating examples from the past and enables readers to gain a vision of what has changed and what has remained the same within those socio-cultural responses to murder. The book also embraces questions of race and gender, in particular cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity on the one hand, and the social processes of 'forgetting and remembering' in the context of particular crimes on the other. Particular murders analysed included those of Myra Hindley, Harold Shipman and the Bulger murder.

The diverse violence of modern Britain is hardly new. The Britain of 1850 to 1950 was similarly afflicted. The book is divided into four parts. 'Getting Hurt' which looks at everyday violence in the home (including a chapter on infanticide). 'Uses and Rejections' two chapters on the use of violence within groups of men and women outside the home (for example, violence within youth gangs, and male violence centred around pubs). 'Going Public' three chapters on how violence was regulated by law and the professional agencies which were set up to deal with it. 'Perceptions and Representations' this final section looks at how violence was written about, using both fiction and non-fiction sources. Throughout the book the recurring themes of gender, class, continuity and change, public/private, and experience, discourses and representations are highlighted.

The diverse violence of modern Britain is hardly new. The Britain of 1850 to 1950 was similarly afflicted. The book is divided into four parts.
'Getting Hurt' which looks at everyday violence in the home (including a chapter on infanticide).
'Uses and Rejections' two chapters on the use of violence within groups of men and women outside the home (for example, violence within youth gangs, and male violence centred around pubs).
'Going Public' three chapters on how violence was regulated by law and the professional agencies which were set up to deal with it.
'Perceptions and Representations' this final section looks at how violence was written about, using both fiction and non-fiction sources.
Throughout the book the recurring themes of gender, class, continuity and change, public/private, and experience, discourses and representations are highlighted.

This book seeks to unravel the issues associated with the crime of murder, providing a highly accessible account of the subject for people coming to it for the first time. It uses detailed case studies as a way of exemplifying and exploring more general questions of socio-cultural responses to murder and their explanation. It incorporates a historical perspective which both provides some fascinating examples from the past and enables readers to gain a vision of what has changed and what has remained the same within those socio-cultural responses to murder. The book also embraces questions of race and gender, in particular cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity on the one hand, and the social processes of 'forgetting and remembering' in the context of particular crimes on the other. Particular murders analysed included those of Myra Hindley, Harold Shipman and the Bulger murder.

This is an original and provocative study of sexual violence against working-class women. The book examines Victorian notions of femininity and masculinity, and investigates how aggressive tendencies in male heterosexuality were expressed through sexual violence against women. The study examines the possible links between, for example, courting ritual and popular culture to sexual assault and domestic violence. Importantly, the book does not merely present women as victims but shows how women responded to violence and fought back both through the courts or through support networks.

This book explores sexual violence against Victorian working women. The author examines how gendered notions inform both women's negotiation of relationships and men's aggression toward women.

This provocative study explores the subordination of Victorian working women in the home, neighborhood, and workplace. Drawing on courtroom proceedings, D'Cruze reveals that women's interest in speaking out against violent crimes often coincide with the court's agenda to discipline the unruly behavior of working men. However, while women used local courts of vindicate their reputation before their neighbors, doing so often compromised their respectability in the eyes of the public.