Talk:Sentencing disparity

Radical demands for leniency

This article seems to be very American-centric, and not taking account of e.g. the movement led by Jean Corston in the UK (and some similar movements elsewhere) that directly calls for a sentencing disparity between men and women. It's not quite clear how an account of Corston's views would fit into an article that concerns itself with a disparity that is being presented as basically "a bad thing" and contrasted with "legitimate use of discretion" - Corston's view is that it is entirely legitimate to give starkly contrasting sentences to men and women. She has also made false claims of an existing sentencing disparity favouring men. Billwilson5060 (talk) 20:42, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In response to what's been added since I created the section on this, it's definitely a controversial and emotive issue, and it's probably untrue that everyone calling for better treatment for women is a "misandrist", even though some of these people can be very unforgiving of men (the Corston report actually stated that the vacated secure buildings should be "re-roled" to jail men). I've removed the category "crimes against men" as a legal procedure doesn't constitute a crime unless there is some higher international or perhaps "natural" law against it, as with slavery. There are attempts around the world to get things such as the Bangkok Rules to ensure women are at least spared some potential privitations, and demands sometimes seep in for expressly shorter sentences, although there are obvious reasons why many will reject such calls, even if they do have a lot of sympathy for women in prison. The less emphatic "gender-specific mitigating circumstances" tends to be used. Billwilson5060 (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

UK gender sentencing disparity

This report [1] has a lot of useful information, some of which should be included. Also this article has further analysis of it [2]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.25.16 (talk) 07:36, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is definitely useful information out there, but it's difficult to draw absolute conclusions - the fact that women are sentenced to less after breaking the same laws may just mean they have commited less serious forms of the same offence. What is clear is the strong consensus among UK feminists for Corston's proposals - if anything they fight over who has done more for women in prison, as blew up between Ash Sarkar and Julie Bindel. Perspectives vary in some ways e.g. claiming Corston had proved the status quo was anti-female[3], or claiming women's offending was so trivial imprisonment should be rare[4], which also seems to be the perspective of Inquest (charity). Compare also visits by Women for Independence to Scottish courthouses[5] to monitor in the hope nothing much happened to the female accused - calling for the prison population to fall from about 400 to 100, as well as for many never to have been "dragged in". An odd detail is that this group was ripped off by Natalie McGarry, who is just starting a prison sentence of her own, which they put out a statement of their concerns over - in the court visits, though, the higher priority in demanding leniency seems to have been domestic abuse against men.Billwilson5060 (talk) 19:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]