Petty Criminality, Gender Bias, and Judicial Practice in Nineteenth-Century Europe

This article challenges the common assumption that gender had a strong impact on prosecution patterns in correctional courts. Whereas this theory has been proven accurate in a common law setting and when juries were involved, its relevance in a penal code system, and specifically in correctional courts, still needs to be proved. From the judicial archives of three different cities, Bologna, Amsterdam, and Le Havre, important differences emerged between those data and the conclusions of work based on serious or indicted crimes. No pattern could be found to suggest a potentially systemic gender bias by the magistrates in their sentencing on petty criminality. The duties of the tribunal covered a large amount of offenses, and only a limited amount of time could be given to each case. The use of the court as a stage to perform publicly legitimized gender norms did not occur in a correctional court: little opportunity was given to the suspect to insist upon or play with the gender norms that would have influenced his/her position in the assizes. The lack of interest by the public and journalists in petty criminality also limited the suspect's and magistrates' need to emphasize their compliance with gender norms. This article encourages historians to put the notion of gender into perspective: gender expectations did exist and were sometimes reinforced by the authorities, but they shaped both men's and women's lives and did not always lead to a positive or negative gender bias.