Georgetown Law
Georgetown Law Library

Legal History: Crime and Punishment Research Guide

This guide details primary English and American resources on the history of crime and punishment.

Crime & Punishment - Women

Women convicts were often treated differently from men, with accusations of witchcraft particularly popular during certain eras, in both England and America. Women were not spared capital punishment, though, or transportation and forced labor. Listed here are a few primary and secondary sources, some first hand accounts, of women and crime. You will also find criminal trials of women in the criminal trials reports, listed earlier in this finding aid. Also look under ,women prisoners,Š and ,female offendersŠ in the subject section of the library catalog.

HV8532.G8 B87 1992
Burford, E.J. Of Bridles and Burnings: The Punishment of Women. New York: St. Martin‰s Press; London: R. Hale, 1992.

Includes discussions on burning, drowning, whipping, the pillory and witchcraft.

KF221.W57 N37 1992r
Burr, George Lincoln, ed. Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706. New York: Notable Trials Library, 1992.

Originally printed in 1914.This is also available on microfiche and online at The Making of Modern Law.

HV9475.W38 B87 1997
Butler, Anne M. Gendered Justice in the American West: Women Prisoners in Men‰s Penitentiaries. Urbana, Il.: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

HV9872.D35 1998
Daniels, Kay. Convict Women. St. Leonard, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin 1998.

INTL
KD612.D87 1997
Durston, Gregory. Moll Flanders: An Analysis of an Eighteenth Century Criminal Biography.Chichester: Barry Rose, 1997.

Analysis of Daniel Defoe‰s Fortune‰s and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders.

MEDIA
K150.N45 Mfiche 54481
Faithfull, Emily. Female Convicts: Discharged Without Protection, Consignment to Ruin. London: Victoria Press, 1864. Reprinted in microfiche, 19th Century Legal Treatises, Woodbridge, Ct.: Research Publications,1990).

HV8551.N35 1991
Naish, Camille. Death Comes to the Maiden: Sex and Execution, 1431-1933. London, New York: Routledge, 1991.

HV9466.O74 1999
O‰Shea, Kathleen A. Women and the Death Penalty in the United States, 1900-1998. Westport, Ct.: Praeger, 1999.

State by state view of capital punishment, and the methods in use.

HV8950.A8 O95 1996
Oxley, Deborah. Convict Maids: The Forced Migration of Women to Australia. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

A study of Irish and English convict women and their treatments during transportation and labor.

HV9466.R35 1990
Rafter, Nicole H. Partial Justice: Women, Prisons and Social Control. 2d ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990. Originally published as Partial Justice - Women in State Prisons, 1800-1935. Northeastern University Press, 1985.

HV8950.N49 R63 1993
Robinson, Portia. The Women of Botany Bay: A Reinterpretation of the Role of Women in the Origins of Australian Society.Penguin rev. ed. Ringwood, Victoria, Australia: Harmondsworth, 1993.

HV6046.Z42 1991
Zedner, Lucia. Women, Crime and Custody in Victoria England. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.