Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice in Ireland

Author: Lynsey Black; Sarah Bryan O’Sullivan
Publisher: Clarus Press
ISBN: 9781917134118
Published In: December 2026
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: Ireland ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Gender cuts across crime and criminal justice at every stage, from crime trends – who commits which crimes – to victimisation patterns – which groups are most at risk and for which offences. Gender is also essential in understanding the experience of criminal justice, through engagement with police, to consideration of sentence and expression of punishment.

This timely text brings together, for the first time, criminal law, criminal justice, and criminological research to explore these intersections and consider the ways in which gender affects crime, victimisation, trial, and punishment. It draws together the wealth of Irish criminal justice scholarship on this topic in one accessible text, providing an essential introduction and overview to the field.

Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice in Ireland looks at the available data on offending behaviour, to consider what we know about the ‘gender crime gap’ in Ireland. The work also takes an in-depth look at the raft of recent legal reforms in the fields of sexual offences and domestic violence which have established new offences and introduced new legal frameworks. The book considers how these reforms have taken place against a backdrop of shifting conceptions of gender violence in Ireland, most visible in the responses to high-profile trials and the associated online activism.

This book also explores the conception and treatment of women who offend and the question of ‘double deviance’ in Ireland. These issues of pressing contemporary relevance are considered within the context of Ireland’s history of the religious detention of women in sites such as Magdalen laundries and the nation’s ongoing reckoning with these scandals.

Crucially, the book brings in the emerging literature on crime and masculinities in Ireland, and draws on the scholarship on LGBTQ+ experiences of crime/criminal justice.

The Gendered Nature of Offending and Victimisation

Gender Violence

Prostitution/Sex Work

The Legal Constructions of Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence

Society and Sexual Violence

Women as Offenders

Semi-Penal Institutions and the Religious Detention of Women

Women in Prison

Post-Release and Alternatives to Prison