HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY WOMEN, WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE MIDDLE AGES

Abstract

Women as offenders were always considered less interesting to anlyze, compared to men and therefore the studies of criminality have been one-sided. Our intention is not to present women as ‘anti-hero’ and show that women can be evil to, but to understand total criminology better and to find out the motives, ways and concenqences of the criminal act commited by women. Today’s research has shown higher participation by women in the total commitment of crime, so we are faced with a danger of escalating of the criminal behavior of women. By using a multidisciplinary method, considering all aspects of a woman’s life, social circumstances, physical and psychological predispositions in general, and individualized at a given moment, we will consider the range of crimes committed by women. With a retrospective approach, we will try to show that women may be secondary perpetrator, but is constantly presented as the offender, and that the modus operandi of her criminal acts is kept to the present day. By presenting the woman’s methods, types, and motives for commiting a crime in the past, we set the scene to better learn of a woman as a today’s offender. So, in order to understand the present, we must start from the past. We will try to show that women can be felons, regardless their status in society and that thay have very different motives and ways of committing a crime than a man.