11. Feminist Criminology
11.6 Crime Statistics on Women
Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian
The above theories about the criminalisation of women aim to explain general crime statistics that reveal clear gender differences. Savage (2019) reports that in 2017, female offenders represented approximately one in four of all police-reported crime in Canada, with the most common offences being property crime (35%). When women are charged with a violent crime, 70% of those charges are for assault, and of those, 76% are common (level 1) assault (Savage, 2019). A similar trend emerges for homicide, with 89% of homicide offenders being male. Here, evidence of the overrepresentation of female Indigenous[1] offenders is clear: the rate of women accused of homicide is 27 times higher for Indigenous women than non-Indigenous women (Savage, 2019). There are also gender differences within Indigenous populations, which includes First Nations, Inuit, Metis and those of unspecified Indigenous identity. From 2007 to 2017, 49% of women accused of homicide identified as Indigenous versus 28% of men (Savage, 2019).
History of Women’s Incarceration in Canada
Historically, women in Canada have faced dreadful conditions while incarcerated. These conditions have been documented by numerous commissions and reports beginning in 1849 with the Brown Commission report. These documents criticized the incarceration of women alongside men, noted the abuse and brutal punishment of women, and recommended gender-segregated penitentiaries (Barker, 2018).
The Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario opened for women in 1934 and was a response to calls for women-only prisons. However, only four years after its opening, the Archambault report (1938) recommended the closure of P4W. Other reports followed, including the Subcommittee on the Penitentiary System (1977), which stated that P4W was “unfit for bears, much less women” (Barker, 2018, p. 11).
A central report in the history of incarcerated women in Canada is the Task Force of Federally Sentenced Women (TFFSW) Creating Choices Report (Canada, TFFSW, 1990) (see the Women Offender Programs and Issues Report). Like previous reports, this one documented a lack of programming and treatment, as well as details on how women’s conditions were troublesome. For example, P4W was constructed as a maximum-security prison, and as such most women in P4W were restricted to higher security protocols than warranted given their offences and risk levels (Canada, TFFSW, 1990). Women were isolated from their families, and Indigenous and Francophone women lacked cultural and language appropriate services (Canada, TFFSW, 1990). Creating Choices called for the closure of P4W and the implementation of five regional institutions and a healing lodge.
While plans for the new regional facilities were underway, there was an incident at P4W, made worse by the subsequent actions of correctional officers. On April 22,