Perception of female crime through the perspective of sentencing

Abstract

The authors deal with the issue of sentencing, which seems to be a sort of illegitimate child of criminal law. This statement does not apply only to a criminal law assessment of legislation and practice in Slovenia. The same could be claimed for all foreign attempts at sentencing arithmetic which are intended to lead to exact calculation but always remain half-way Perhaps it Should be so. However, it would nevertheless be more just if various sentencing attempts were to slowly but steadily approach the lower limits of sentencing. What can be noted at present, are oscillations, and in recent decades even a strong swing upwards. The result is in longer sentences, fewer alternative measures and more prisoners. In many countries, their number has doubled or even tripled.

In order to illustrate the unexploited margin given by the possibility to fix milder sentences, the authors have presented in their paper all criminal offences of criminal homicide, including homicide attempts, committed in the last 25 years by women in Slovenia. The sample is complete, although relatively small. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently illustrative to justify the recommendation that sentencing should receive more attention and try to avoid the temptations brought by modern inventions of computer data processing. These temptations should be replaced by a sharper feeling for people, even perpetrators, as being of value.