The feminisation of criminal justice : towards a demasculated justice

Abstract

Criminal justice has traditionally been a male-dominated area promulgated by men for men, as most professionals in the field were men engaged in response to male violators. Despite strides in the demasculation of criminal justice through more inclusionary and workforce diversity mainly emergent in response to increased attention to female offending, the feminisation of the criminal justice system is far from reality, as women in the police, legal and judicial professions and corrections still face various challenges on both the personal and organisational level. Such challenges extend beyond entry, retention and glass-ceiling effects of career progression, as they significantly impinge on work-life balance and holistic wellbeing. In addition to overtly discriminatory gender-pay gaps, operating within male-dominated patriarchal organisational cultures, the female criminal justice workforce is systematically subjected to ongoing paternalism, misogyny and harassment, as their incursion in the masculine domain of criminal justice defies the hegemonic expectation of ideal femininity. The ramifications go beyond the personal as they impact on the fair and equitable delivery of justice, highlighting the need and emergency for a demasculated and feminised form of doing justice.