Sunday, August 12: The A.D.D. Detective
WOMEN in CRIME
by Leigh Lundin
In the heyday of the TV-Movie-of-the-Week, Oxygen, and WE cable movies for women, I once suggested creating a ratings web site for (re)viewers with the following categories:
RATINGS
Today, these ratings wouldn’t be quite as applicable. Melodie Johnson Howe recently wrote about Bette Davis, one of those rare icons who attempted to set the record straight. Being a blog about reading and writing, her article got me thinking about women in crime.
The Maltese Falcon became a sensation and a hit film, one that shocked and stuck in the public memory because it was a rarity to even consider a woman as a ‘bad guy’. Women just didn’t (gasp) do that sort of thing!
In recent years, we’ve seen women deliberately drown their children (and lie about it), slaughter their parents in a cult slaying (and lie about it), and even admit to climaxing during a pickaxe killing spree (and brag about it). Yet, our society is still shocked (and titillated) when women commit violent crimes.
Our belief is very American. To be certain no one misses feeling offended, I’ll share a view by an Iranian Muslim: "Westerners have an opinion that women are not capable of great evil. Middle Easterners know better."
One of my school’s debate team projects dealt with capital punishment. During research, I learned a number of facts that forever colored my view of death and state execution. Without room for detail, the bottom line is that execution does not deter violent crime; indeed, both statistics and psychologists suggest that the death penalty encourages homicides. The formula is simple: When executions are banned, murder rates typically drop. When executions are re-instituted, murder rates climb.
Psychologists argue that execution is a way of legitimizing death and, perceived as a solution, plants a seed that killing is an acceptable way to deal with problems. Many years ago, there was an old saw to the effect that New York City (pre-Giuliani) had more murders in a month and Texas more murders in a week than the British Isles in a year. In a nation that leads the Western World in per capita incarcerations, executions, and homicides, it’s hard to make an argument for execution beyond sheer vengeance.
The key to exposing capital punishment for what it is and what it isn’t, may lie with women. If Texas hadn’t been competing with Florida and if Karla Faye Tucker hadn’t confessed that she had an orgasm each time she struck victims with a pickaxe, her life might well have been spared. Churches, her jailers and even her warden believed she did not deserve execution and thousands demonstrated and petitioned that she not be put to death. We have a concept that men deserve the death penalty and women don’t.
Maybe none of us do, ‘us’ meaning society in this case. If capital punishment provides no relief from crime and may even contribute to violence, shouldn’t we consider alternatives?
The important lesson is not that women and men are capable of great evil, but that we are all capable of great compassion and great good. Men and women, the good and the bad, we are each of us children of God, who made no exceptions for "Thou shalt not kill."
The gripping aspect of mysteries and crime fiction is that we explore these issues on our own terms. We, the writer and to an extent the reader, can control the environment and choose exactly how far to embrace the ugliness of our subject. Most of all, we can provide not just entertainment, not merely a good tale or a cerebral puzzle, but a platform, an opportunity to study and explore the important issues of the human condition, the only ones that truly count: Good and evil. Life and death.
Leigh has modestly failed to mention that he just received word of his second career short story sale, to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Congratulations, Leigh!
We at Criminal Brief are justly proud to call you our colleague.
JLW: “Leigh has modestly failed to mention that he just received word of his second career short story sale, to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Congratulations, Leigh!”
Leigh — I second the motion. It must be every newly published writer’s fear that he/she is a “one trick pony.”
Now that you’ve sold to both EQMM & AHMM you’re a real pro!
I’m a firm supporter of capital punishment. The fact that it is not a deterrent is irrelevant. (In 18th century Britain, practically every conceivable crime was punishable by death, and it did absolutely nothing to deter crime, then, either.) Deterrence is a social consideration in designing a penal system, certainly, but the primary concern is justice.
I believe that society has the right to determine whether or not a criminal has so exceeded its boundaries that he should be deprived of his life, and that some crimes are so heinous that they justify the highest penalty.
We consign the innocent to death every time we send in the Marines. If we are willing to sacrifice them in the name of our values, I don’t see why the guilty should walk.
Smoke Â’em, says I, and good riddance.
Leigh,
The chart is very funny. And congratulations on your short story. BUT please don’t quote an Iranian muslim to make a point about women. That’s like quoting the serial killer Jeffery Dahmer on what to serve for dinner.
And I can’t believe JLW and I agree on something. The death penalty! Though I’m not sure what the Marines have to with it.
Leigh, congratulations. Can’t wait to read the story. Terrie
Congratulations, Leigh! Very cool!
Thanks, everyone. Tom, you’re exactly right– there’s that fear of being a one-hit wonder.
Melodie– Jeffery Dahmer (laughing) … for once LOL actually meant something.
Congratulations on your sale!
Oh, and don’t put JLW, Melodie and myself on a jury together!
What difference does it make, as long as it’s not a capital case? You wouldn’t be on the jury in that circumstance, anyway–the prosecution would have had you disqualified during voir dire. In cases other than capital ones, the judge determines the sentence, not the jury. The jury is the trier of fact, and only determines whether the prosecution has met its burden of proof or not.