Women and the death penalty

September 23rd 2010, was Teresa Lewis, 41, pronounced dead by the State of Virginia after she was injected by a lethal combination of drugs at Greenville Correctional Center. Her sentence was carried out as punishment for letting two people to kill her husband and stepson, so she could collect insurance money. She was the first female to be executed in Virginia in 100 years. Supporters claimed she lacked the mental capacity to implement such a crime and people all over the world (including many Europeans, there is an overwhelming majority against the death penalty) expressed their objections to her execution.

Dora Wright became the first woman executed in the United States. Wright, 31-year-old African American woman, was put to death by hanging in 1903 for the killing and torture 7-year-old children in his care. The jury took only 20 minutes to find her guilty and sentence her to death. Most people are familiar with her case.

Reason, it is difficult for the American public to accept that women commit just as heinous crimes as their male counter parts. The execution of women has become a growing concern in this country, manifested by public outcry and protests. Activists confront politicians opposed to the death penalty, and many claim laws concerning the death penalty should not be used also for women.

Eleven women have been executed in the United States since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. Two in my own Member State Florida: Judy Buenoano, who was electrocuted in 1998 for poisoning her husband and drowning her son and Aileen Wuornos, who was put to death by lethal injection in 2002 for killing six men. The movie "Monster" was written about Wuornoss life and portrays a mentally ill abused women often lashing in society and men she believed had abused her. You see the movie, you can not help but feel for her.

It is understood that women are committing crimes and end up in prison under very different circumstances than their male colleagues. Women have higher rates of past trauma and abuse, and numerous studies linking the early persecution of women to criminal behavior later in life. Women sent to prison with higher rates of substance abuse, sexual abuse, episodes of self-harm and mental illness. Incarcerated women access also mental and medical health care to two times the rate of male offenders.

This topic gives rise to more questions. Should we deal with the problem and not sex? Should early victims and former trauma keep women from facing the same penalties as men who commit similar crimes? Or should there be equality-should men and women convicted and imprisoned equally?

As the ardent debate showed around Teresa Lewis these issues are far from being answered. But the question we must consider as we continue to investigate crime, punishment and the role of women in United States criminal justice system.