Women Criminals An Encyclopedia of People and Issues

This unique, two-volume study examines female crime and the women who commit it.

Some women are truly criminals, committing crimes of robbery, homicide, embezzlement, and kidnapping. Others, like activists Angela Davis and Dolores Huerta, are called criminals but may actually be victims of circumstance, prejudice, or politics. What, if anything, do all these women have in common? What influences them to act as they act—and society to react as it does?

The two-volume Women Criminals: An Encyclopedia of People and Issues addresses both key topics and key figures in women's crime. The first volume provides topical essays about areas critical to the understanding of female criminals, such as the definition of women's crime, explanations of women's criminality, ethnic and age diversity in female criminals, and responses of the criminal justice system. The second volume comprises biographical entries profiling women who are obviously criminals, such as Aileen Wuornos and Myra Hindley, and also women who were victims of circumstance, unjust laws, or narrowly applied definitions of crime, such as Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Sophie Scholl.


In addition to highlighting the breadth of women's criminality, these portraits provide a holistic, multifaceted understanding of the dynamics of women's crime and why it occurs, connecting the individual stories to the larger social-scientific perspectives. Care has been taken to include the women's own voices and perspectives where possible and to address the intentions and reasoning of the system that responded to their criminality.