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WOMEN: THE NEW CRIMINALS by Richard Deming

WOMEN: THE NEW CRIMINALS

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1976
Publisher: Nelson

This hop-skip-and-jump survey of female criminality begins with the incontestable fact that more women are perpetrating traditionally ""male"" crimes. According to FBI statistics for 1973-1974, ""serious"" crimes by women (robbery, aggravated assault, homicide, kidnapping, etc.) jumped by four and a half times as much as serious crimes committed by men. Before explaining this not so astounding phenomenon, Deming recounts tales of legendary female ""monsters"" like Arsenic Annie who poisoned several husbands; quotes Kipling (""the female of the species is more deadly than the male""); and recaps some discredited theories linking female criminality to abnormal physiology or sexual derangement. All this as a preface to his own view that Women's Lib is ""the greatest single causative factor"" of the recent upsurge. Not that he's against Women's Lib. At long last the ladies are achieving equal opportunity--in bank robbing, auto theft, street mugging, and related professions. Deming hints that economic factors matter too, but doesn't choose to pursue them. Instead he lays out a jumble of psychiatric studies, reports from women's correctional facilities, notes on female terrorists from Weatherwomen to the SLA, and random thoughts on reforming the criminal justice system. Minimal.