MAD OR BAD?: Child-Killers, Gender and the Courts

This article reports some of the findings of a research project on child-killing by parents or parent-substitutes, drawing on a sample of 48 case files from the Director of Public Prosecutions in London from 1984, and a sample of 24 fatal and 23 non-fatal cases reported in the Criminal Appeal Reports and Criminal Appeal Reports (Sentencing) between 1980–90. It was found that the criminal justice system responds very differently to men and women who kill their children at all stages of the legal process, in accordance with the view that ‘men are bad and normal, women are mad and abnormal’. For example, women are less likely than men to be prosecuted; they also predominately use ‘psychiatric’ pleas and receive psychiatric or non-custodial sentences. Men, however, tend to use ‘normal’ pleas and receive prison sentences. Although this appears to be evidence of men being treated more harshly than women, it is demonstrated that there is some justification for this, on the basis of standard sentencing factors and broader structural reasons. It is also shown that informal mechanisms of social control have a greater impact on the legal processing of women than men. Nonetheless, such dramatically different treatment of the sexes cannot be justified. The paper concludes by suggesting ways to remedy this, drawing on more general criminological debates about sex and sentencing