Category: CrimLines

CrimLines

CrimLines, living timelines of criminalisation, help to visualise how the use of criminalisation in Europe became an unquestioned or contested tool for governing society. They also demonstrate how criminalised persons come to be seen within the broader culture as particular figures of threat. Social and political categories of people are thus shown to be produced through laws, policies, debates, and practices.

The CrimLines are a work in progress, a growing overview of practices and figurations, used as research tool and point of reference for anybody interested or involved in the research fields. Framing them as a living means that it is an ongoing project that will continue to be modified. Please notify us with recommended changes or additions.

Crimline: Crime and Punishment of Women in Germany

by Friederike Faust

Why do women commit crime, and how should they be punished? This CrimLine reconstructs in excerpts how the social image of criminal women, corresponding criminological explanations as well as penal policies have changed in Germany.

Delinquency and norm violations by women have always been in particular need of explanation, as they diverge with conceptions of the female nature and role. Linked to the question of the causes and motives of female criminality is the question of the appropriate and effective punishment of women.

This CrimLine is intended to help understand how today’s women’s penal system is organized legally and politically. The CrimLine reveals the social morals and imaginaries about female crime that come to shape the contemporary treatment of incarcerated women. Spectacular criminal cases will be used to illustrate how women’s crimes are dealt with differently over the years and in accordance with changing social gender relations. These social debates also reflect the paradigm shifts in the criminological theorization of female delinquency. At the same time, criminology as an applied science influences national and international penal politics and legislation, and thus has sever impact on the everyday experiences of sentenced and imprisoned women.