Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Working with Violent Female Offenders. Annette McKeown Chartered & Registered Forensic Psychologist. Aims & Objectives. Different Forms of Female Aggression & Violence Understanding Female Aggression & Violence Female Hidden Violence Working with Female Violent Offenders. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Citation preview
Working with Violent Female Offenders
Annette McKeownChartered & Registered Forensic Psychologist
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Aims & Objectives
• Different Forms of Female Aggression & Violence
• Understanding Female Aggression & Violence
• Female Hidden Violence
• Working with Female Violent Offenders
High Number of Female Violent Offenders in Prison
PopulationTotal Female Sentenced Prison Population March 2013: 3060
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Increasingly Violent Women in the Media
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Increasingly Violent Women in the Media
Different Forms of Female Aggression
Understanding Aggression and Violence in Females (1)
Swan and Snow (2006)
Understanding Aggression and Violence in Females (2)
• Gender differences from young age.
• Boys more likely to be directly and verbally aggressive.
• Indirect and relational aggression particularly common in girls (Crick et al., 2008).
• Aggressive behaviour in girls noted to include: Excluding another child Intentionally ending a friendship Gossiping (Crick, 1996)
Understanding Aggression and Violence in Females (3)
• Female violence often in private, domestic arena against themselves or children (Motz, 2010)
• More likely to murder an intimate partner and less likely to murder a stranger (Chan & Frei, 2012).
• Similar levels of domestic violence (Archer, 2000; Winstok & Straus, 2011).
Understanding Aggression and Violence in Females (4)
• Suggestions that girls increasingly becoming involved in gangs (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004).
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Understanding Aggression and Violence in Females (5)
• 8% of women committed violence alongside a male vs. 1% of male offenders (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999)
• Mothers more likely to murder in infancy whereas fathers more likely to murder when over age of 8.
• Between 1976 and 1997, mothers and stepmothers committed half of murders of children
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Women’s Hidden Violence in the Home
• Denial of female aggression (Motz, 2010)
• Idealization of motherhood
• Abusive mothering across generations
•Violence against own body and children as
means of communicating distress(Motz, 2010)
•Projection of own experience of childhood
Women’s Violence Against Children
• Munchausen’ s Syndrome equally spread in men and women
• 85% Munchausen’s By Proxy cases were mother (McCLure et al., 1996)
• Most severe cases usually involve children under age of five.
• Primary purpose is to gain some form of internal gratification, such as attention.
Female Domestic Violence• Women as likely to perpetrate domestic violence as
men (Archer, 2000; 2002; Bookwala, 2002)
• Some cases more severe forms of violence than men (Cercone et al., 2005)
• Female prison populations indicate more often perpetrator than victim in most recent relationship
• No gender-specific treatment programmes
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Treatment Challenges with Violent Women
Boundaries
Splitting
Transference
Counter
Transference
Victim/Perpetrator
Stress
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Ways forward
Division of Forensic Psychology Conference June 2013
Thank you!Any questions?
