WOMAN THE CRIMINAL

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1924, Page 3

WOMAN THE CRIMINAL

(BrnJt’rederic. Clifton in the “Daily Alai!”.) Recently the criminal courts have been occupied with cases rf major importance in which women have been the olfenders. demonstrating that in crime a.s in everything else, there i;. change and progress oi should il lie retro-

grc.v-.ioii ! Call It what you will, the fact remains that to-day the police forces of the world can no longer nll'nrd to ignore or even treat lightly the female element in dime.

This does not mean that they have done so in the past; a good detective never ignores anything, hut women have not hitherto been regarded .seriously as perpetrators of offences requiring a maximum of physical courage.

Scores of them have been found guilty of murder, the most heinous ol all climes; hut that does not require courage. Indeed, it is often the outcime of 1 owa.nlice, or, so lar a.s women are concerned, of outraged vanity- ami vanity, and the means to gratify it. has always been regarded in the past a.s one of the two chief incentives to crim hv women.

Tliov have always boon looked upon as ‘-slinky’’ criminals; cunning and treacherous, but rarely physically dangerous. Blackmail, shoplifting, petty swindling, and the like have been their chief dimes, all of which have their origin in a desire for “easy money to satisfy the craving for a good time and a comfortabe mode ol living without work—a fairly definite form of vanity. The second incentive to crime by women lias always been summed up in the word “sex.” This is the incentive which has frequently had murder as its outcome, and with the exception of h-ihv fanning it will be difficult to find another cause which has sent a woman to the gallows.

Now, however, there is a decided change in the criminal activities of women. They are challenging comparison with men in the nature and daring of their operations. There was the "Bobbed Hair Bandit’’ of New York, the women who without a tremor belli up men and banks and defied armed police. Tu our own try there have been a number of women burglars, a notorious practice which demands a courage and skill rarely credited to women.

Then it lias been frequently suggested that a woman is the moving spirit in some of the highly organised and cleverly controlled gangs of swindlers and “dope’’ syndicates preying upon the public—indeed, there is hardly any criminal activity to-day in which women are not alleged to be indulging. Ylmt is the explanation ? Xomo people find it an aftermath of the war four years of broadening experience for women, in which they found themselves able to perform duties regarded exclusively as the tasks of men— four years which developed their spirit of adventure, now finding outlet in eiime.