Punishment outcomes by gender: theft from a specified place and murder


These stacked bar charts demonstrate that penal outcomes for those sentenced to death varied considerably by gender, regardless of the nature of the offence. The two categories of offence, theft from a specified place and murder, contain offences at the two extremes of the hierarchy of severity. While the overall distribution of penal outcomes therefore varied significantly between the two categories, in both cases women experienced less serious punishments than men. Women were less likely to be executed (orange) and more likely to be imprisoned (yellow) and given a free pardon (light blue). Women convicted of theft from a specified place were less likely to be transported (grey), while the proportions were almost identical for men and women convicted of murder.

Credit: Robert Shoemaker



Click to expand