Same Crime - Female gets more time than Males

[lpstong]

I was reading the article Sentences vary when kids die in hot cars at yahoo. It was about adults who left children in cars and the children died from heat stroke. It was a lenghthy article. What got my gears going was more than a forgetful parent or otherwise. But the stats if a male did the same crime got less time than a female. The stats from the article were:

_Mothers are treated much more harshly than fathers. While mothers and fathers are charged and convicted at about the same rates, moms are 26 percent more likely to do time. And their median sentence is two years longer than the terms received by dads.

_Day care workers and other paid baby sitters are more likely than parents to be charged and convicted. But they are jailed less frequently than parents, and for less than half the time.

_Charges are filed in half of all cases — even when a child was left unintentionally.
.......
Women were jailed more often and for longer periods than men. But when the AP compared mothers and fathers, the sentencing gap was even wider.

Mothers were jailed 59 percent of the time, compared to 47 percent for fathers. And the median sentence was three years for dads, but five for moms.

To me this is so unfair. What do you think?

 

[The Equivocate]

It's unfair but I can see why it happens. Maybe juries probably have the notion that the mother should have had more "maternal instincts" than the fathers' to not let that happen?

 

[robertjr]

It's not fair. Although people want "everyone" to be treated equally, the laws will never be applied as so if humans make the decisions on the final outcome. Our personal biases just do not allow it. You can see the same sort of thing when you look a child abuse and drug cases. Conversely, the tables are turned against men on these crimes.

 

[ChrisChris]

I think it is unfair, but that being said though statistics aren't always accurate and it could just be a coincidence that women are treated more harshly.