Deidre Palk examines the effects of gender within the criminal justice system of England. Her work goes beyond the obvious questions of whether magistrates and jurors judged male and female defendants differently or imposed on convicts different sentences based on their gender. She is interested more broadly in whether men and women acted differently in the commission of crime, in defending their actions in court, or in seeking leniency or pardon after conviction. She concentrates on men and women's involvement in three selected crimes—shoplifting, pickpocketing, and circulation of forged paper currency—in London and the county of Middlesex, choosing these offenses because a significant number of women were charged with these crimes.

The strength of Palk's work lies in her close analysis of the records. She relies on a qualitative, and not simply quantitative, reading of the data in order to answer a basic question: “Were offenders against the criminal law treated differently in accordance with their sex, and if so, why and how?” (2). Other historians have highlighted an apparent leniency with which women defendants were treated by the courts. Palk's argument is that one has to compare like with like and that the quantitative analysis of bulk, statistical data is insufficient since criminal behavior is gendered in its commission before its perpetrators are even brought before the courts. Therefore, simple comparisons of the outcomes of trials of men and women charged with the same crime are troublesome since so often the same crime isn't being judged. For instance, in the author's analysis of pickpocketing cases, the data show that although more women than men were charged with this crime, half of the women were acquitted, compared with less than one-third of the men. On the surface, this might be attributed to what the author calls “paternalistic leniency” (49). However, Palk argues that the discrepancy in verdicts is “almost entirely a factor of diverse gendered behavior and the highly gendered nature of the statute itself” (75). The law on pickpocketing had been written to protect people who were going about their business in crowded public areas, and so magistrates and jurors would convict only in cases in which the theft was initially undetected by the victim and only if the victim had exhibited “proper vigilance and caution” (70). Most men charged with the crime were accused of stealing from unsuspecting individuals as they walked in the streets or in other public areas. Most women tried for pickpocketing, though, appear to have been prostitutes. Luring men into dark alleys or private rooms in order to engage in sexual activity, these women then stole from their inebriated or unsuspecting clients. In these cases, magistrates and jurors seem to have believed that the “clients” had not exhibited due vigilance of themselves or their goods, and that the women were not a threat to the general public but only to those men incautious enough to avail themselves of their services. Thus, the higher acquittal rate for women was not because jurors behaved leniently toward female defendants but because there were significant differences in the method and location of the crimes committed by the accused.

Another strength of this work is that, as best the records allow, Palk traces the stories of these men and women past the sentencing stage to the granting or withholding of pardons and remissions of sentences. Again, this allows for a nuanced view of the role played by gender in the judicial treatment of men and women. Notably, although all three offenses examined were capital crimes, few of those convicted, whether male or female, were executed. In contrast to the previous century, when a royal pardon might be extended to an individual facing execution in order to demonstrate the mercy of the monarch, new demands on the criminal justice system in the early nineteenth century led to a situation in which “the decision-makers were no longer choosing an occasional object for mercy, to be spared from the gallows. They were selecting an occasional example of terror” (140).

Certainly, women escaped the gallows more frequently than did men; Palk estimates that women most likely constituted less than 10 percent of those hanged. However, women could not escape a lesser punishment by agreeing to a term of military service, as men sometimes did. Also, women were less likely to be transported, but more likely to be imprisoned. Palk argues that although gender likely played a “strong, but indirect role in judicial discretion at this point in the justice system” (147), it was the needs of the state that were paramount in reaching decisions as to the ultimate fate of prisoners, rather than the sex of the prisoner.

Palk makes good use of Home Office records and the Old Bailey Sessions Papers, although most novel is her reliance on the records of the Bank of England. Bank officials were highly involved in the prosecution of cases involving forged banknotes, as they believed the need to protect the integrity of the British monetary system was vital. Their records are complete and accurate—particularly useful, as that is not necessarily true of other criminal justice records. Bank records include, also, correspondence from convicts who sought mercy or aid from bank officers. These appeals, written by a population who generally left behind very few written records, are particularly interesting to social historians. Palk demonstrates that bank records, generally overlooked by historians of crime, offer a surprisingly fruitful path into the criminal justice system.

Palk makes clear that in a patriarchal society such as England, paternalism and judicial chivalry could and did affect the treatment of defendants but that other factors, such as the gendered behavior of the accused during the commission of crime, the political needs of the state, and changes in the penal system were factors just as potent in deciding the ultimate fate of those who stood in the dock. This work will prove quite useful to those writing on gender history, women's history, or the history of crime and the courts.