| Abstract: | The article provides a brief summary of the results of a comparative study between men and women serving time for homicide in Mexico City, with a particular focus on women inmates. The study included a review of the records of 400 men convicted of homicide, which was 43 percent of those serving time in Mexico City prisons for such crimes. Our sample also included the 50 women prisoners in Mexico City convicted of homicide. We enjoyed full access to files regarding the prisoners and conducted in‐depth interviews with all of the women in an effort to reconstruct their life stories. We undertook this review in an effort to record the types of homicide most frequently committed by men and contrasted those with trends among the women prisoners. We also hoped to determine whether differences existed in the way the system of justice dealt with men and women. In both cases we uncovered relevant information that had not been dealt with in previous Mexican studies, such as the fact that in homicide cases in Mexico City women draw sentences that are 25 percent longer than that of their male counterparts. |
