Law Commons^™

Lessons Unlearned: Women Offenders, The Ethics Of Care, And The Promise Of Restorative Justice, Marie A. Failinger

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article focuses on the reality that women's relationality, and particularly their relationships with men in their lives, profoundly affects the behavior that lands them in the criminal justice system. The author argues that restorative justice, which is essentially grounded on an ethical understanding of crime and treats the offender an as interacting subject/agent, is a necessary avenue of response to most women offenders' crimes, and that corrections must go beyond a psychological approach that treats crimes as a form of illness, or a systematic model which attempts primarily to rectify deficits in women's social situation.