Homicide, Gender and Responsibility

Kate Fitz-Gibbon is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University (Victoria, Australia). Her research examines legal responses to lethal violence, the law of homicide and the impact of criminal law reform across Australian and international jurisdictions. This research has been undertaken with a focus on gender, responsibility and justice. Dr Fitz-Gibbon has advised on homicide law reform reviews in several Australian jurisdictions. Recent publications include: Homicide Law Reform, Gender and the Provocation Defence (2014, Palgrave Macmillan) and Homicide Law Reform in Victoria: Retrospect and Prospects (edited with Arie Freiberg, 2015, The Federation Press). Sandra Walklate is Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology at the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom) and adjunct professor at QUT in Brisbane. Internationally recognised for her work in victimology and research on criminal victimisation, her recent publications include: Victims: Trauma, Testimony, Justice (2015, Routledge with Ross McGarry), The Contradictions of Terrorism (2014, Routledge with Gabe Mythen), Criminology and War: Transgressing the Borders (edited collection, Routledge, 2015, with Ross McGarry). She is currently Editor in Chief of the British Journal of Criminology.

• Introduction: Homicide, Gender and Responsibility Part I: Making Sense of the Boundaries between Homicide, Gender and Responsibility 1. A Question of Provocation or Responsibility? Revisiting the Case of Ruth Ellis and David Blakely 2. Murder, Manslaughter and Domestic Violence 3. Representing Intimacy, Gender and Homicide: The Validity and Utility of Common Stereotypes in Law 4. Constructions of Masculinity and Responsibility in the Sentencing of Children Who Commit Lethal Violence 5. Murderousness in War: From Mai Lai to Marine A Part II: Blurring the Boundaries between Homicide, Gender and Responsibility 6. "He Seems to Come Out as a Personally Cruel Person": Perpetrator Re-Presentations in Direct Murder Cases at the ICTY 7. Lethal Violence and Legal Ambiguities: Deaths in Custody in Australia’s Offshore Detention Centres 8. Attributing Criminal Responsibility for Workplace Fatalities and Deaths in Custody: Corporate Manslaughter in Britain and Ireland. Conclusion: Concluding Thoughts on Homicide, Gender and Responsibility

This collection of illuminating and provocative essays explicitly engages with the ways notions about gender and responsibility are deeply implicated in understandings of myriad forms of lethal violence, from the violence of individual actors to the violence of the state. Implicitly, these analyses also reveal how our understandings of lethal violence shape constructions of gender and criminal responsibility; and they require us to consider the violence of legal interpretation in both its productive and destructive forms. The international and interdisciplinary scope is impressive, informative, and imperative.—Professor Rosemary Gartner, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, CanadaIn conclusion, Homicide, Gender and Responsibility offers an original perspective on various representations of responsibility in legal responses to homicide, though the role of gender is not emphasized in each chapter as much as the title of the collection would suggest. Every chapter uses a different conceptual and methodological approach to examine a different context in which lethal violence occurs, and the book appears as a collection of different papers which can be consulted separately depending on one's need. However, as a collection, this book could constitute a useful source for graduate students, as it provides new insights on the concept of responsibility and the blurred border between murder and manslaughter - as well as for scholars, as it provides stimulating cues for future research in these neglected approaches to lethal violence.— Eleonora Rossi and Marieke Liem, Violence Research Intiative, Leiden University, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books