[...]... feminist work on criminal law generally While many chapters in the book offer reform proposals and some suggest future directions for feminist research, most concentrate on criticising current criminal law rules and their application—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the relative novelty of feminist work on criminal law and the criminal process, and the law s slow response to feminist concerns These concerns... present, the feminist critique of criminal law rules and its combination with the insights of criminology and criminal justice, let alone those of other disciplines, remains patchy in mainstream criminal law discourse Admittedly, Lacey and Well’s Reconstructing Criminal Law 9 adopts an explicitly feminist approach to criminal law 10 However, textbooks like Clarkson and Keating’s Criminal Law: Text and... Reconstructing Criminal Law (1998) xiii Contributors Aileen McColgan is Reader in Law at King’s College, London Her research interests are primarily in discrimination law, labour law and human rights law, though she also dabbles in criminal law Her recent publications include Equal Pay: Just Wages for Women (1997); Women Under the Law: The False Promise of Human Rights (1999); and Discrimination Law: ... whole criminal justice process and consider the way that criminalisation and punishment 7 8 See, eg, Smart, C, The Ties That Bind, 1984, London: Routledge and Feminism and the Power of Law, 1989, London: Routledge See, eg, Temkin, Chapter 10, in this volume 3 Feminist Perspectives on Criminal Law intersect with other forms of social control, such as the family, welfare state and idealised notions of... International and Comparative Law Quarterly Industrial Compensation Reports International Journal of Sociology and Law J Cr L JLS JSWFL Journal of Criminal Law Journal of Law and Society Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law LGR LQR LRB Local Government Reports Law Quarterly Review London Review of Books xxix Table of Abbreviations Med L Rev Melb LR MLR Medical Law Review Melbourne Law Review Modern Law. .. Unbalanced,5 Hilary Allen demonstrated how such actors concentrate on the external appearance of male criminal behaviour on the assumption that it is rationally chosen—whereas with women, the focus is on their internal motivations on the assumption that their criminality emanates from pathological states of mind Allen’s work reflects a common theme in British feminist work on criminology and criminal justice,... the probation system and the operation of non-custodial forms of punishment 4 Criminal Law and Feminism However, while the book’s organisation reflects traditional criminal law categories, it is important to realise that a feminist perspective on criminal law reveals themes and concerns which cut across these categories The aim of the rest of this chapter is to map those recurrent themes and concerns... sentencers as to how to punish convicted criminals; by prisons and other relevant authorities on how to treat convicted criminals and when to grant parole; and by probation officers Also important are the rules of evidence, which might make it more or less difficult to prove criminal conduct Clearly, as early feminist work on criminal law showed, these decisions and evidence law may have an equally, if... aspects of the criminal justice process which crucially affect the treatment of those ensnared in criminal law s web.16 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Lacey, N and Wells, C, Reconstructing Criminal Law, 2nd edn, 1998, London: Butterworths But cf Wells’ more recent doubts on this score in Chapter 7, fn 14, below Clarkson, CMV and Keating, HM, Criminal Law: Text and Materials, 4th edn, 1998, London: Sweet & Maxwell... Ashworth, A, Principles of Criminal Law, 3rd edn, 1999, Oxford: OUP Smith, JC, Smith and Hogan: Criminal Law, 9th edn, 1999, London: Butterworths Earlier textbooks, like that of Glanville Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law, 2nd edn, 1983, London: Stevens, in fact echo the sort of sexism that feminist critiques have uncovered in law: see Naffine, N, ‘Windows on the legal mind: the evocation of rape in legal . alt="" FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON CRIMINAL LAW Cavendish Publishing Limited London • Sydney FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON CRIMINAL LAW Edited by Donald Nicolson,. Lois Feminist perspectives on criminal law (Feminist perspectives series) 1 Criminal law England 2 Criminal law Wales I Title II Nicolson, Donald 345.4'2 ISBN