TERRORISMProsecuting Female Terrorists: What Do We Know?
Research from Europe and America suggests women frequently receive lesser sentences for terrorism-related crimes than male offenders. What do we know about prosecuting female terrorists in England and Wales?
Existing UK based research suggests that female defendants tend to receive 33% shorter sentences than male defendants for terrorism related crimes (Monaghan et al., 2023). Exploring nuances within this overall average, this article analyses 546 terrorism cases (male n=503, female n=43 ) prosecuted in England and Wales between May 2006 and February 2024, and reveals a mixed picture. These figures relate to any terrorism related crime prosecuted in England and Wales, potentially capturing a mixture of returnees and non-travelers, though this remains unclear. While, on average women receive shorter sentences, on a case-by-case basis there is greater variability in sentencing for women prosecuted for terrorism offences, compared to male offenders. In this article, differences in sentencing and potential explanatory factors are discussed.
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“The dataset shows clear differences in the types of crimes men and women are prosecuted for.”
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Sentencing Differences
The dataset shows clear differences in the types of crimes men and women are prosecuted for. With some exceptions, women were generally prosecuted for non-violent offences linked to providing support for terrorism.
Of the 19 offences shown in the data, women were prosecuted for just 9. Average sentences were generated across these offence types to understand whether there were differences in sentencing between men and women prosecuted for the same kind of crime. This resulted in 15 comparisons (Table 1).
In one case, male and female defendants received equal sentences. In 8 instances, the average female sentence ranged between 1.45 and 44 months shorter than the average male sentence. In 6 instances, the average female sentence ranged between 5 and 60 months longer than the average male sentence.
A direct comparison was possible between individual male and female cases in two instances (Table 2). In one case, the female defendant received a sentence 24 months shorter than the male defendant. In the second instance, the female defendant was given a life sentence 144 months longer than the male defendant.
Low numbers of comparable cases severely restrict the scope of this analysis. However, these findings indicate a wide variance in female sentencing which persist in comparisons between defendants prosecuted of the same offence. Overall, these differences in sentencing are not fully explained by differing offending behaviors and are yet to be fully accounted for.
