Drawing on government data and interdisciplinary expertise, this timely book seeks to explain why the changing economic and legal status of women has not reduced the gender gap in criminal offending.

Women and Crime: A Reference Handbook examines how women’s patterns of offending have changed over time in America, from the Colonial period to the present. The book sets the stage with a historical overview of women’s criminal activity. Subsequent chapters cover such topics as changes in women’s status and patterns of offending; the impact of childhood abuse on the development of criminality; and how changes in law, the War on Drugs, and other crime policy have, in fact, increased the frequency of women’s imprisonment and arrests. International issues, such as legalization of prostitution, sex trafficking, and women’s involvement in organized crime, including drug cartels, are also explored.

Each chapter examines theory, research, law, policy, and key players in the evolving response to women’s crime patterns. Throughout the work, the author links women’s status, victimization, and offending patterns, and suggests how crime control policy, far from saving women, is increasingly making it impossible for female offenders to live on the outside.

Quotations from women offenders that explain their actions and situate them in life-history trajectories associated with criminal behavior

Biographies of key theorists and researchers, prominent women offenders, and advocates for gender and justice

Uniform Crime Report and Bureau of Justice statistics on girls’ and womens’ offending relative to men

Primary source documents on legislation impacting women’s offending and victimization

A chronology of women’s offending and legislation from the Colonial era to the present

A glossary of key criminal justice terms that apply to women offenders

An interdisciplinary bibliography of reference works, monographs, journal articles, Internet sites, and streaming/DVD resources