RT Article
T1 Between Paternalism and a Gender Perspective: Prosecutorial Decision-Making and Focal Concerns in the Global South
JF Criminal justice and behavior
VO 52
IS 11
SP 1699
OP 1716
A1 Quintana-Navarrete, Miguel
A1 Fondevila, Gustavo
A2 Fondevila, Gustavo
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1937722201
AB Research has shown that women are treated more leniently than men in the criminal justice system, a finding that is often explained by referencing focal concerns theory and stereotypes related to paternalism and chivalry. For the most part, this research is quantitative, has focused on sentencing, and has been conducted in the Global North. We build on this literature by leveraging qualitative data to examine prosecutors’ gender perceptions and how these perceptions shape early decision-making in the Argentinian criminal justice system. We find concerns consistent with those described in prior research among these prosecutors, who often hold paternalistic and stereotypical views of women as weak, vulnerable, less dangerous than men, and primarily as caregivers. But these stereotypes coexist with prosecutors’ views that women are victims of a paternalistic society and that their prosecution could be experienced as revictimization, an unexplored perspective in case processing research.
K1 Qualitative methods
K1 Women offenders
K1 Gender
K1 Decision Making
K1 CRIMINAL justice system
DO 10.1177/00938548251353748