Shocking: Woman, 84, confesses to sex with boy, 11

This little piece of news is definitely shocking to hear about.

Georgie Audean Buoy (84), has plead guilty to having sex with an 11 year-old boy who was in her foster care.

Due to the age of Buoy and the lack of a criminal record before this, Buoy will only serve 36 months in accordance to the plea deal. However, she must register herself as a sex offender when she gets out of prison, pay $5,000 in damages to the victim and up to $7,500 to cover counseling fees.

Now, my question here is, why is there a stigma in regards to men vs. women sex offenders, how are women offenders treated in regards to their sentencing and how they're treated in the media? There is no question that male sex offenders receive harsher punishments, as the fact alone that "females comprise only 1.2 percent of arrests for rape and 8.0 percent of arrests for all other sex offenses (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002). Women who are sex offenders are most often convicted of offenses against children (Faller, 1987; Lewis and Stanley, 2000; Rosencrans, 1997; Vandiver and Walker, 2002) or low level felonies (other than rape); because of the latter, female sex offenders are often considered "less serious" sex offenders (Hetherton, 1999)."

"The only assessment to date of female registered sex offenders (Vandiver and Walker, 2002) focused on identifying a typology of offending patterns, including victim and offender characteristics. This review of official records revealed that these offenders were almost all white, with a mean age of 31 at the time of their first sex offense. Females comprised a slight majority (55 percent) of the victims of these female sex offenders. All had juvenile victims and less serious (if any) criminal records than their male counterparts. Vandiver and Walker (2002) were not able to gather complete data on how many of their sample of female sex offenders were related to their victims; from the data available, though, 94 percent of the victims were related to the offender."

Coming to the conclusion that female sex offenders receive lighter punishments due to the fact that there is simply not a high rate of offenders, nor do these offenders commit other violent crimes or serious felonies or even have a past criminal record. Punishment is usually up to the discretion of the presiding judge, unless a case goes to trial, then a jury will decide. In any case, those offenders (female) that have been convicted of sex offenses (usually) get a lighter sentence than what a male offender would receive for the same offense.

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Some information taken from: Experiences and Attitudes of Registered Female Sex Offenders. Federal Probation, (68)3, December 2004. Richard Tewksbury, Ph.D. Department of Justice Administration, University of Louisville.

References

Faller, K.C. (1987). Women who sexually abuse children. Violence and Victims, 2(4), 263–276. Hagan, F.E. 2003. Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Hetherton, J. (1999). The idealization of women: its role in the minimization of child sexual abuse by females. Child Abuse and Neglect, 23(2), 161–174.

Lewis, C.F. and C.R. Stanley. (2000). Women accused of sexual offenses. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 18(1), 73–81.

Rosencrans, B. (1997). The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers. Orwell, VT: Safer Society Press.

Vandiver, D. M., & Walker, J. T. (2002). Female sex offenders: An overview and analysis of 40 cases. Criminal Justice Review, 27(2), 284–300.