Feature
Violent femmes
by Matt Nippert
Increasing numbers of New Zealand women are turning to violent crime – and doing the time.
Murder is a staple of our newspaper front pages, and murders committed by women are becoming increasingly common.
Wellington psychologist Dr Sharlene Murdoch recently completed for her PhD thesis the first piece of New Zealand research into how and why women become violent. She found that although women committed just 12% of violent crimes in 2006, New Zealand female inmates are far more likely to have been jailed for violence – especially extreme violence – than their counterparts in the United States and England.
“New Zealand has the highest proportion of women violent offenders and women sentenced for homicide,” she wrote.
Murdoch interviewed 19 women jailed for violent offending during her study – including four convicted of murder, two of manslaughter, and many of aggravated robbery and assault – and feels she has a handle on our worst female offenders.
She says violent women were on average less likely than their male counterparts to have previous convictions or reoffend on release and were older.
In the majority of cases, they injured people they knew, with the gender split of victims being even. However, Murdoch notes: “Interestingly, all the victims of murder – and attempted murder – were male, while both manslaughter victims were female.”
Traumatic upbringings, including physical and sexual abuse and chronic drug use, were more prevalent among violent female inmates than their male counterparts.
In three-quarters of the crimes Murdoch studied, women acted with co-offenders. And weapons were used most of the time.
“Knives were the weapon of choice,” writes Murdoch, but pieces of lumber, frying pans, crowbars and motor vehicles were also used.
Dr David Riley, head of psychological services at the Corrections Department, notes the so-called weaker sex can overcome physical disadvantage by arming themselves. “We know that with males, often violence is more severe because of their physical ability to inflict serious physical harm. Weapons can be a great leveller.”
As an example of how these methods and motives play out, Murdoch used Pauline*, one of her subjects, as a case study. Along with two teenage female cousins, Pauline was convicted of murder.
Needing money to attend a 21st party “up north”, the three visited the home of an aunt’s “sugar daddy” who had often acted as a source of cash, albeit in return for sexual favours. The trio were, in Pauline’s words, “pilled up” and drunk the night the killing took place.
After some time at the victim’s home, with no money forthcoming, the teenagers grew frustrated and impatient. Pauline had brought her infant son and was feeding him in the kitchen when the idea of killing the man was raised. “Yep, let’s just kill the bastard,” Pauline agreed – although she later told Murdoch she thought her cousins’ plan was a joke. The three were laughing.
The victim was watching television when the first swing of the hammer missed. Murdoch writes that the ensuing struggle between the middle-aged man and the three teens quickly grew chaotic.
“Multiple weapons were selected and used during this offence, including a hammer, knives and kitchen pans. Weapon selection took place during the offence and seemingly continued until the victim’s demise … they all ran back and forth to the kitchen to obtain suitable weapons.”
Pauline related to Murdoch that although the frenzy abated, the violence did not: “A lot of times we wanted to stop, but the blood and that was already out there, and he was screaming and stuff, and we carried on and, like, two of us would stop but my cousin would turn around and go, ‘What are you stopping for?’, so we would carry on again … yeah, it was weird.”
After locking the body of the victim in the his car’s boot, the trio couldn’t find the car keys. After robbing the house, they fled the scene.
Within days they were in court facing murder charges. Relatives had refused to hide them. None of the trio is eligible for parole until late next year.
Manukau’s Auckland Regional Women’s Correctional Facility is one of the new tranche of jails to house New Zealand’s rapidly rising prison population. When construction began in 2002, it was thought 152 beds would be sufficient, but rising imprisonment rates led to an expansion. Within five months of opening in 2005, all 286 cells were full.
Staff and inmates at the new prison have noticed a worrying difference in the prisoners now entering. Anne Ede, a 21-year veteran warden of the Corrections Department, says certain types of offences have become more common: “You’d very rarely get a girl in for murder. But in the last wee while, it’s been escalating.”
Given newspaper stories on court cases and the images of violent women in music and fiction, it’s little wonder that during a formal powhiri to the Manukau jail – energetically performed by eight inmates – prison manager Jeanette Burns says: “It’s quite hard for us to shake that Bad Girls image.” Burns – since promoted to the role of assistant regional manager at Corrections – adds: “Although sometimes our women don’t help us with that.”
One woman who hasn’t helped is Jackie Taukano, serving a sentence for aggravated robbery. Taukano has blue tattoos on her hands and small crosses on her knuckles, but laughs when asked if she got inked in prison. “Nah, I got them done at school. When I was bored.
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