Summary Justice for Women: Stafford Borough, 1880-1905

Serious female offenders and prostitutes were marginal individuals in
their own time, yet both have received a disproportionate amount of scholarly
research. Although still overshadowed by male offenders of any type, the female
petty offender was more prevalent. Yet such common-
place female offenders
have been largely ignored by historians and criminologists, particularly those
living and offending outside the Metropolis. By using a largely working-class
market town as a case study, this article aims to redress that imbalance by
establishing the participation of women in mundane and less overtly gendered
crime in late nineteenth century Stafford. In so doing, the article will show
that there were comparatively
few juvenile offenders and a host of middleaged
women mainly convicted
for drunken and anti-social behaviour, common
assault, and breaching the increasing regulatory legislation