Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England [Hardcover]

This book explores how the Victorians perceived and explained female crime, and how they responded to it--both in penal theory and prison practice. Victorian England women made up a far larger proportion of those known to be involved in crime than they do today: the nature of female criminality attracted considerable attention and preoccupied those trying to provide for women within the penal system. Zedner's rigorously researched study examines the extent to which gender-based ideologies influenced attitudes to female criminality. She charts the shift from the moral analyses dominant in the mid-nineteenth century to the interpretation of criminality as biological or psychological disorder prevalent later. Using a wide variety of sources--including prison regulations, diaries, letters, punishment books, grievances and appeals--Zedner explores both penological theory and the realities of prison life.

This is a rich and scholarly study, which reveals much about the relationship between responses to female criminality and prevailing social values and concerns. --CJ International

[An] excellent contribution to Victorian social policy...Her sweep is broad; in a clear style, she does an excellent job of summarizing crime trends, penal theory, and perceptions of women. A fascinating work from start to finish. --CHOICE

No short summary can do justice to this innovative and elegantly written study, which interweaves theoretical sophistication with an impressive command of the evidence and includes a brief but highly perceptive account of both the merits and limitations of the seminal writing of Michel Foucault and Michael Ignatieff. --Journal of British Studies

This study of female crime and custody in nineteenth-century England provides both the specialist and the general reader an important perspective on gender that is absent from previous studies. This work is written in a clear and direct style. --lS!