Abstract
Little is known about how alcohol intoxication impacts sentence outcomes. This study assesses whether intoxication differentially aggravates sentence outcomes for male and female defendants of assault offences. It does so by modelling the probability of custody and sentence severity using the Crown Court Sentencing Survey, including interaction terms to account for the gendered application of intoxication as a sentencing factor. The main finding is that the aggravation afforded female defendants is twice that afforded males where intoxication in present and when controlling for relevant case characteristics. The study spotlights how cases of assault are processed through the criminal justice system and raises concerns with how gender equality is interpreted in sentencing practice with reference to alcohol intoxication.
Highlights
At the time of writing, the UK Government is due to produce a female offenders strategy
In offering insights into the role gender and intoxication play in shaping sentencing outcomes, this study adds to the literature on gender disparities in sentencing as well as scholarship of how cases of alcohol-related violence are processed through the criminal justice system
Findings from this study suggest intoxication remains a contested sentencing factor, as its influence does not uniformly aggravate male and female offending
Summary
At the time of writing, the UK Government is due to produce a female offenders strategy. Recent sentencing policy has forwarded gender-neutral guidance according with the principles of ‘procedural’ justice to promote consistency and ‘equality’ of outcome. These principles accord with a just-deserts-based model focused on criminal risk management, they run counter to conceptions of justice prioritizing rehabilitation or reparative approaches to social harm (see Player 2014). These paradoxical imperatives result in challenges for ensuring just and fair punishment for women in policy and practice. Despite ample evidence that women are judged more harshly for their alcohol intoxication than men (Plant 1997; Staddon 2015), within scholarship of sentencing there has been limited engagement with how alcohol intoxication interacts
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