Is Chivalry Dead? Gender and Sentence in the Victorian Magistrates' Courts

Abstract

The widespread belief that female defendants tend to receive lenient treatment is predicated on questionable assumptions and receives only qualified support from the empirical evidence. A study of sentencing in Victorian suburban and rural magistrates' courts suggests that while female defendants are fined less than males, they are, in other respects, treated similarly. These findings cast doubt on the paternalism and stereotyping hypotheses, and raise the question of whether the more lenient fines reflect a realistic assessment of female defendants' relative lack of economic resources.