Victor Streib, who has been researching the subject of women and the death penalty for 20 years, has released an updated version of his report “Death Penalty for Female Offenders.” In his research, Prof. Streib, a professor at Elon University School of Law in North Carolina and Ohio Northern University’s Pettit College of Law, has found that women are significantly less likely than men to receive a death sentence, possibly because prosecutors seem less inclined to seek the death penalty against female offenders. He noted , “Women [are charged with] roughly 10 to 12 percent of the murders in the country. They get about 2 percent of the death sentences and get less than 1 percent of the actual executions.” He also noted that it is impossible to know why prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty in some cases but not others.
Streib’s report noted:
- 162 women have been sentenced to death since 1973.
- In 1984, Velma Barfield was the first woman to be executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
- Of the 1,099 executions in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty, 11 were women.
- The last execution of a female offender was in Texas in 2005.
- Of the 51 women on death row, 12 killed their husbands or boyfriends and 11 killed their children. Two killed both their husbands and their children.
(“Professor studies women on death row,” by Mike Wilder, Times-News (Burlington, NC), February 18, 2008). See Women and Resources.
Studies
Feb 16, 2024
