Female Criminality in India
poison that endangers its own life.Her abusive childhood turned her that way and we all know that. Therefore we can say, the blame for crimes committed by women to some extent, if not fully, can be accounted to our system of biases which always weigh the woman as subordinate. It may also be a possibility that her sudden awareness to her rights and her craze to prove herself equal to man or it is a revolution against cultural ethos or its a mere identity crisis resulting out of social crises are one of the few reasons which account to a woman’s hand in crime. These compelling factors such as want of economic independence, recognition in society and to earn her respectable position is what probably forces these women to resort to these extreme steps of taking law in their hands according to my view.
I conclude that the courts while deciding cases, should look at the reasons and compelling factors which led a women to commit that particular crime. As observed in most of the above cases that our unbiased social system is one of the main reasons why women resort to crime as a retaliation to her suppression the Court should therefore import the concepts such as “diminishing responsibility” (as was allowed to Kiranjit Ahaluwalia), battered women’s syndrome etc. Attention should be paid on providing her with proper medical aid and even on rehabilitation. In case a female offender suffers from a mental condition and she comes out of prison after serving her term, she would probably continue to commit crimes because the problem still subsists in her, and who knows it would have probably even become from bad to worse.
As I have told before, there can be no straight jacket formula or a particular theory to explain female criminality. A detailed study by criminologists could probably provide an answer to our unanswered questions.
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Indian Federation of Women Lawyers v. Shakuntala
Divya Vikram (Author) is a Third Year Student from National University of Juridical Science (NUJS).